Greatest Stories Never Told
by Empress Akitla
Summary: Or, at least, never finished. A collection of first chapters of unfinished stories, one shots, scenes, and AUs that never went anywhere. Will probably contain whump, humor, mystery, friendship, horror, and utter ridiculousness.
1. Popilikia (Disaster)

**Okay. Let me explain what's going on here. I've been thinking about putting together a collection like this for a while, but decided to finally get it together and started today.**

**These will all be random scenes, one shots, AUs that didn't get farther than a cursory glance, and first chapters that never went anywhere. A lot of these first chapters I'm hesitant to put out there, because I really would like to finish these stories. But, I have to be honest with myself, the likelihood of most of these ever being completed is slim.**

**I'll put a tidbit at the start of each chapter kind of explaining what it is. This one is the first chapter from my natural disaster story, "Popilikia". I really love this one, but just don't think I'm going to finish it. But I might. So if you see it pop up in the future sometime...**

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**"Popilikia (Disaster)"**

"_I've lived in good climate, and it bores the hell out of me. I like weather rather than climate."_

_-John Steinbeck_

_Beach, Honolulu, Oahu_

_Sunday, 2:30 pm_

A rift in the clouds had finally appeared, revealing the sun in a respite from the past few days of rain. The sand on the beach glowed and a few birds flocked out of the trees to the shore to revel in the warmth. The lull in the storm had even attracted quite a few people, most of them probably tourists trying to get a taste of Hawaiian sunshine.

Danny Williams had been goaded into venturing outside to walk along the shoreline with his lovely daughter Grace. Only she could get him so close to an ocean that just the day before had been a churning gray mass pelted by rain. Well, Charlie may have been able to had he been there with them but the little boy was with his mother. Danny just had Grace with him today, feeling that maybe she needed some one-on-one time with him.

"What're you looking for, monkey?" he asked after watching his teenaged daughter bend down several times as she walked ahead of him.

"I dunno," she said. "Maybe something cool. Uncle Steve said that storms wash a lot of cool stuff up."

As Danny looked around he had to agree, though maybe not on the cool part. Seaweed lay in brown clumps where the tide had pushed it out of the ocean, pieces of barnacle covered wood had come ashore as well, and some trash marred the otherwise pristine golden sand. Nothing really classified as 'cool'.

"Unless Steve thinks ugly brown sand gnat infested seaweed is something gawk at, I fail to see what could wash up that's all that interesting," Danny said, giving one of the brown clumps a wide berth as he followed Grace.

"Charlie found a seashell the other day when we were at the beach," Grace huffed. She pushed her hair back behind her ear and bent on one knee, trying to get a closer look at a speck in the sand. "Seashells are so hard to find, especially a whole one. Uncle Steve said it's because the surf smashes them."

"Along with everything else that it touches," he said. He kept an eye on the clouds, having learned fully that it would only take thirty seconds for another torrential downpour to sweep in and darken the skies again. For now, though, the only drenching was being done by the sun.

Grace yelped and fell back on her butt. Instantly Danny was crouching next to her, a hand on either arm ready to haul her away from whatever had caused her to yell. She put a hand to her mouth and giggled.

"It's okay, Danno," she sat forward on her knees again and pointed at the culprit. "I thought it was alive."

Half of a crab shell lay partially unburied where she had been digging. It was a pale ghostly white and had one claw stuck up like it was ready to fight despite its deceased status.

Danny smirked, not so happy to have been startled but glad to hear his daughter laugh and see her smile. "Well, it looks like it went out defiant against the shell smashing surf. Sadly the poor schmuck lost that battle."

Grace grinned at his recounting of the crab's last moments. She pinched the tip of its claw and moved it out of the way. As she continued to scrape away the sand in the general area another speck of white popped up. She glanced up at Danny.

"Maybe it's the other half of the crab," he suggested, moving a handful of sand out of the way for her.

"We could give him a burial at sea," she said. The rising tide would most likely take the other half out to sea by this evening anyway.

"A Viking funeral, huh? Sounds like something your uncle would want. It combines all of his favorite things: the ocean, fire, and annoying me because he'd make sure that I would be the one to have to shoot the flaming arrow," he teased.

Grace shook her head. "Not nice. Besides, you always say that you two will go down together, probably in a hail of bullets or a fiery explosion."

Danny made a face at her. "You're not supposed to be listening to me while I'm griping about work, monkey. You have to remember that I will always, always try to get home to you and Charlie."

"I know," she nodded. She furrowed her brows. "I don't think this is the other half of the crab."

She tugged the white object free of the damp sand, rubbing her thumb over it. It was more triangular than the crab and was more solid than it, too. It had some heft to it and was about the size of her palm.

"I dunno, monkey," he picked it up and took it down to the surf with Grace tailing him. A cool wave washed over his sandal clad feet, sandals because he knew better than to wear tennis shoes on a beach. He dipped the object into the water and held it up again. "But I'm thinking that maybe Shamu got socked in the jaw and lost a tooth."

"I don't think orcas come too close to the islands," Grace took it back, rolling it over in her hands and being careful of the slightly serrated edges.

"Maybe it's from a sea monster, you know, the kind that washes up on shore and everyone argues over whether it's a dolphin or a mermaid," Danny suggested. "Or it could be an arrowhead from an ancient Hawaiian boat that didn't quite make it into the open ocean, like Moana but without the Rock singing alongside her."

"Danno," she sighed and rolled her eyes. "It'd be cool to figure out what it is. You think Uncle Steve would know?"

Danny scrubbed a hand over his face and shot a glance up at the clouds. They were starting to close in again. Wouldn't be too long before the rain returned and chased everyone back into their houses and hotels and restaurants. Speaking of restaurants, he could use a cup of coffee and something sweet to eat. And there was an off chance that there would be someone at the café he was thinking of that would know what this thing was.

"How about we leave Steve alone for now and go grab something to drink?" he asked, putting an arm around her shoulders and guiding her back to the parking lot.

"Is it just because you don't want him to see you in shorts and sandals?" Grace, very perceptive girl that she was, knew him too well.

"No, of course not," he scoffed. "But the Neanderthal would give me grief for weeks on end if he caught me wearing flip flops."

* * *

_Kekoa Beachside Bar and Grill, Honolulu, Oahu_

_Sunday, 2:37 pm_

Kono Kalakaua-Noshimori fluffed up her still very damp hair as she walked into the beachside bar and grill. A bright grin lit up her face when she saw her two favorite boys sitting together companionably at a table sheltered under a thatched ceiling. Adam Noshimori was leaning back in his chair, a beer comfortably in one hand while the other wiped his eyes as his laughter died down. Chin Ho Kelly had a particularly smug look about him.

"Hey, cuz, you look kind of suspicious," she quirked a brow at him and gave Adam a quick kiss before sitting in the third chair where a sweating beer bottle awaited her.

Chin held up his hands in a peaceful gesture. "I don't know what you're talking about. I was only informing your husband about your childhood."

"Halloween, freshmen year," Adam waggled his brows at her.

"No! Chin, you traitor!" Kono slapped his upper arm. "That was between you and me!"

"Well, now it's just between us three," Adam smiled.

Kono shook her head and took a swig of her beer to hide her amused smirk. She was just so happy that finally her cousin and her husband got along. It did her heart good to know that the rest of her ohana, aka Five-0, had also accepted him into the fold.

"How're the waves?" Chin asked, tilting his head to the sunny beach where several tourists were getting the most out of the sudden cease in the storm.

She made an 'eh' motion with her hand. "Storm has 'em all chopped up. Kind of hard to get a good ride."

"Looks like some of the tourists are trying anyways," Adam said.

The trio all cringed as one of them epically wiped out on a high and fast wave, the colorful rented board shooting up over the crest only to be halted by the ankle leash attached to the amateur surfer.

"Nice," Kono commented.

* * *

_East Honolulu, Oahu_

_Sunday, 2:45 pm_

Steve McGarrett was thoroughly stuffed. He had offered to take Lou Grover to a local haunt where the fish was the freshest on the island and the steak was the juiciest without it being uncooked. Not to mention it had house brewed beers and a killer selection of desserts. Originally he was going to invite the whole team but before he could open his mouth he overheard their various plans for their day off and decided that he was a big boy that could eat by himself.

Of course, just when he had decided that, Lou told him that he had nothing planned and wondered what he was doing during the afternoon of his day off.

He was driving home now, trying to plan what he wanted to do with the rest of his day. Swimming this morning had been off limits with the storm cutting the sea into powerful waves. Despite what his partner thought, he did have common sense and did not have the urge to accidentally get pulled into an undertow or get smashed against something that was more solid than he was.

Making a grunt of irritation as he looked at the clouds swirling back around to resume their business he decided that swimming was most likely not on the list for his late afternoon activities. Besides, exercising on a full stomach was a recipe for disaster. Tasting food for a second time was most definitely not on the list for his late afternoon activities.

He could clean his multiple firearms, or work on the Marquis. Or he could sit around and watch TV.

Or he could bug Danny, see what he was up to.

* * *

_Grover Household, Honolulu, Oahu_

_Sunday, 2:54 pm_

Lou was utterly and completely ready for a nap. He was in full food coma mode. That place that McGarrett had taken him to was good, may have even rivalled some of the places in Chicago, though he would never admit that aloud to any of the others.

With a deeply relaxed sigh he stepped through his front door just as it started to lightly sprinkle again, despite the sun stubbornly hanging on for just a while longer. Liquid sunshine was right.

"Dad, you wanna watch this movie I got?" his son Will was crouched by the TV in the living room, already putting a disc in the DVD player.

"Son, is that thing really on a DVD? They don't got it on Netflix or somethin'?" Lou asked. He kicked off his shoes by the door and moseyed towards the couch, gratefully sinking into its soft cushions.

"My friend let me borrow it," he explained, jumping up from the floor and flopping into a nearby recliner. "Said it's not on Netflix yet."

"And just what kind of movie is this?" Lou asked, though there was a large chance that he would fall asleep before the first act was over. The call of the food coma was persistent.

"A monster disaster movie."

* * *

_Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Island of Hawaii_

_Sunday, 2:59 pm_

Venus Kamaka was on her third cup of coffee. She was on a streak of trying as many brews and creamers as she could. Right now she had a really strong Kona roast with a mocha chili powder creamer that she was sure had no business being a coffee creamer. She could do with a little chili powder on a mango, but drew the line at combining it with chocolate and especially coffee.

Sticking her tongue out, she set the offending beverage aside and swiveled in her chair. Using her tiptoes she rocked back and forth, staring at the ceiling. How many of those dots were on those tiles again? She had counted them at one time, one really extremely boring time. Apparently monitoring four live volcanos wasn't as exciting as it had first sounded.

Of course, at least there was actually stuff to monitor. There was always lava flowing out of Kilauea. Sometimes interesting things happened. Well, when it involved glowing hot liquid rock interesting things always happened. Nothing so far as threatening any nearby communities recently. The sulfur dioxide emission rates around the lava lake in the Overlook Vent had been high for a while, so that was interesting. They had to keep an eye on Hualalai because even if she was a quiet one that hadn't spewed in the last couple of centuries, there were worries that an eruption from her was in the future. Off island the observatory watched the East Maui volcano of Haleakala. Another quiet one.

They had only really had a flurry of activity back in March of 2016 when there was a 4.2 magnitude earthquake 70 miles north of Hilo that even Oahu felt. That was when there had been a string of them off shore in an area typically declared to be non-active. So that, that was definitely interesting even if later investigations showed that the seamounts out there were no more threatening than a large bonfire.

Venus snorted. After that someone has asked if there was a chance that one of the volcanoes was going to erupt.

Well, yeah, duh. Kilauea and Mauna Loa were two of the most active volcanoes in the world. They were constantly erupting. It's not like earthquakes were a new thing around the island chain. With volcanic activity came seismic activity. One would think that the locals would know that.

Venus frowned. On second thought it may have been a tourist from Texas that asked her that. Now that she could understand.

_Beep._

She glanced to her right at the computers that took up the majority of the desk. Seismographs must've picked up another tremblor. They could get upwards of thirty of them in a week. Volcanic activity equals seismic activity, aka tremblors. Usually hitting a magnitude between 1.2 and 2.7, they weren't all that noticeable. Occasionally there were some dust shakers, glass rattlers. There had been ground surface deformations appearing at the summit of Kilauea for a while now, lending to the quantity of tremblors. The magma pocket below them seemed to be heaving at the moment, a common occurrence. Yellowstone was the same way, the ground inside the caldera seeming to inhale and exhale with the massive magma chamber beneath it.

This alert, however, was a bit more intriguing.

Venus set her feet flat on the ground and faced the monitors fully.

"Where is this sucker coming from?" she braced her chin on her hand and accessed the data streaming in.

The three biggest earthquake causers were Kilauea and Mauna Loa, of course, but they had a less visible sister called Lo'ihi about 22 miles southeast of the Big Island. It was the youngest volcano in the chain, still in its deep submarine pre-shield development. Sitting a little over 3,000 feet below the ocean surface it wasn't much of a spectacle to behold above sea level even if it did cover an area of 160 square miles. However, they did not have very good equipment down there to watch that sister.

Her eyes widened. "What the hell?"

If this was right, the tremblor's coordinates matched up to Pele's Pit, a collapsed vent on Lo'ihi. It was an active crater and vented water no warmer than 400 degrees Fahrenheit on a normal day. It wasn't unusual for the tremblors to originate from any of the craters on the submerged volcano.

It wasn't unusual for the tremblors between 1.2 and 2.7 to originate from any of the craters on the submerged volcano.

This was not usual.

Venus bolted to her feet when the first wave hit.

A tremblor at a 6.3 magnitude was not usual, and from the information being collected by their various monitors around the zones of activity, Lo'ihi was just clearing her throat.

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**Thanks for reading, guys! I'm not sure of an update schedule for this collection. It'll probably be random.**


	2. Kia'i 'Ilio (Watchdog)

**What's this one about?**

**Oh man. This was supposed to be a dark one dealing with crossing the line and becoming judge, jury, and executioner. Another one I would love to finish and have to admit defeat that it'll probably never get done.**

**Warning: Mentions of rape.**

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**"Kia'i 'Ilio (Watchdog)"**

It was one of those days.

One of those days you didn't really want to get out of bed, but hauled yourself to your feet anyways. The kind where you asked why the sun was shining so brightly in your eyes when you parted the curtains when TV would lead you to believe that bad days are always stormy and dark. The kind where you glared at the coffee pot until it was done percolating, and then proceeded to beat your head against the refrigerator door when you realized you had no milk.

Of course, the day was shaping up to be as bitter as the coffee in his mug. No work today. No crazy, insane partner to keep his boredom at bay. No hard case to string his mind out on. No Grace today. He was alone in his house fuming. Needing a good rant, knowing that his coworkers had already heard all he had to say. It was no good. No good.

Hesitantly he touched the remote. He shouldn't, he knew he shouldn't. It wasn't good for his blood pressure.

Ignoring common sense, he grabbed it and sat in the middle of his couch. As if by their own initiative his fingers flicked through the channels to the local news.

Currently off duty Detective Danny Williams let out a slow, controlled breath through his nose. Definitely not good for his blood pressure. The story currently being fed live from outside the courthouse was a mockery of their latest case. It mocked him. It mocked Five-0.

And he didn't know if they could recover after this blunder.

"_In mere minutes, Jacque Redford will be released due to a technicality…."_

"Technicality," Danny muttered viciously as he buried his nose into his mug. That's what they had managed to get it down to with a lot of finagling and a bit of unwilling help from the Governor. "A technicality called we crossed a line and got caught."

It had started two weeks ago.

Actually, strike that. It had started three months ago on the Big Island. But it hadn't become their case until two weeks ago.

Jacque Redford. High school biology teacher. Track coach. Avid hiker and swimmer. Photographer on the side. Owner of two border collies and one goldfish. Native of Salt Lake City, Utah. Frequent customer of Pele's Coffee and Smoothies. Green thumb of tomatoes and several herbs. Friendly, cheerful, helpful, humorous, charming. All around a pretty decent guy.

Oh, and he's also a serial murderer rapist.

That much the news reporter made sure to get across. And she made sure to get across whose fault it was. "_After all of Five-0's hard work and tireless tracking of this man, local Defense Attorney Akamai Kaluhiwa provided enough evidence to a judge for him to declare Redford's immediate release. This evidence is rumored to have something to do with police brutality while Redford was in the custody of Five-0…."_

'Rumored' is all the press could get their greedy hands on, thank God. The Governor had made sure to cover his bases and in effect cover Five-0's as well. Still, news hounds always found a bone to chew on and flash to the public.

Danny had wondered, honestly, when their methods would come back to bite them in the butt. It was only a matter of time before Steve's scary death stare and their so-called 'immunity and means' couldn't stop a suspect from ratting to somebody about the nature of their time with Five-0. The problem had always been finding courage and finding a listening ear to hear out their sob story of how they'd been thrown in a shark cage or had ribs broken from a well-deserved beating.

And damn it, Redford had mustered up both.

Tilting his head back and raking his fingers through his hair, Danny sighed heavily. His knuckles were still raw. Steve's knuckles were still raw. They had none the too kindly gone to town on the guy.

No one understood the decisions that had to be made when all else had failed. Not unless they had been across from the leering man who sat silent while a young girl's life hung in the balance.

Fire and ice mixed in an interesting combination inside Danny's ribcage as he recalled the case.

Fire doused his heart and licked up his bones at the thought of what the monster had done. How the biology teacher, favored teacher of many of the students, had brutally raped three women in their early twenties before leaving them to drown in hidden tide pools. How he had weighed them down with what was essentially junk. Chains binding their wrists and ankles, anchored to busted cinderblocks, old axels, pipes, anything that could be found at a local dump or salvage yard.

Ice settled in his stomach and back of his throat at the thought of what he had done on Oahu. On _his_ island. On the island _his_ precious baby girl lived on.

Danny licked his lips, rubbing the back of his neck. He stared down forlornly into his half-finished mug of already cooling coffee.

That sad excuse for a man had killed three women on the Big Island before moving his act to Oahu. Somewhere between here and there, something shifted. Redford's MO shifted. Shifted from dark haired women in their early twenties to dark haired girls in their early teens. He had never heard of such a sudden change in a case like this, but it had happened.

Suffice to say, they had been brought in on the case after HPD found young Alexis Hart in a tide pool. It had jarred the team considerably. One by one they had looked at Danny, because this sweet little fourteen year old looked too much like his eleven year old.

It goes without saying that protection was put on Grace. It also goes without saying that once piece by piece they had tracked Redford down, no one had any sympathy for him. That zero sympathy dropped into the negatives once Chin discovered he had taken another victim and already had her stashed in a tide pool.

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting back the tears that threatened to fall. They had almost not made it. It had been a matter of minutes.

They tried everything. Tried getting into Redford's head. Tried verbally scaring him. Tried offering him deals, though begrudgingly done.

Nothing worked.

Torture doesn't work. Danny had always stuck to that and shouted that at his partner. People will say anything to make the pain stop. But this case…this case left them little else.

"Dead men don't talk, Danny!" Steve had yelled whilst manhandling his partner off Redford.

Granted, that was true. But, live men better tell you the truth because if they don't, Steve will come back and help his partner finish the job. After being 'persuaded', Redford had cracked and told them where they could find Hailey Ward.

Danny stood up and took a few steps, as if escaping the memories.

Choppy images of him diving in the water with Steve flashed in his mind's eye. Him holding Hailey above the waves. Steve using bolt cutters to shear through the chains. The hospital. The crying parents. The thought that that little girl would have to live with the nightmare for the rest of her life.

He almost dropped his mug at the last one. No child should have their innocence ripped away like that. One glare at the TV set his nerves and insides all up in flames again.

"Damn it!" Danny drove his fist into the nearby wall.

Luckily the plaster didn't shatter and neither did his hand, but the pain gave him something to focus on rather than their slip up.

It was their fault that this man was walking free. It was their fault that he was going to be let loose on the streets again. It was their fault they had failed to bring closure to the victims. And it would be their fault if he raped and killed any more girls.

Danny set his forehead against the corner of the wall, eyes closed. A tear ran down his nose and dripped to the floor. He couldn't believe that of all their cases, it was this one that had come back to get them. Worse still, and this made his gut nauseated and his heart thump irregularly, Redford knew them. He knew the team now.

And he knew that Danny had a daughter.

So when his phone started ringing he jumped. When he looked at the caller ID, his heart was in his mouth.

He answered faster than he ever had. "Grace? Are you okay, monkey?"

"_I'm fine, Danno. What's wrong?"_

Danny gave a shaky laugh in his panic. His baby was safe. She was okay.

But, as he sat down again and looked at the continuing newsfeed, how long would she stay that way?

Brain divided between talking to his daughter and watching the happenings on the TV, Danny almost missed the reporter announcing that Redford was walking out of the courthouse.

Smug bastard. The cameras captured his triumphant look better than they did the bruises on his face and the sling on his arm. What they couldn't fully capture was the blackness in his heart. Or the empty hole where his heart should've been.

It was at times like these that Danny saw how easy it would be for a cop to cross the line. To in essence say, 'Screw the justice system. I'll take care of this.'

But Grace's sweet innocent voice on the other end of the line lightly but firmly took his hand from the edge of that oblivion, dragging him back into the sunny paradise that he had sworn to protect and keep safe for his daughter. Danny half-smiled. It was a good thing he had his baby there for him. His breath, his life.

Even as his eyes narrowed at the monster that the cameras were intent to watch, he enjoyed his daughter's voice.

Redford trotted down the stairs into the crowd of reporters and his 'fans'. Danny shook his head, fingers tightening around his phone. Why was it these kinds of sickos managed to garner fans? What was wrong with today's world that people worshipped these guys?

Though, not everyone held their opinions, it seemed. In the background he could make out protesters, picking out the parents of both Alexis and Hailey. Police spread out their arms to keep them back. He recognized a few of the officers alongside Duke Lukela. He knew why they had to be there, because God knew that if it had been _his_ daughter, he would've needed to be held back from snapping the guy in half.

Danny took a deep breath in, returning to what Grace was saying. Something about seeing him later. He was about to say his goodbyes to her when a crack echoed from the TV.

The camera's view ducked down and then swept upwards towards the buildings in the north before coming back to the foreground. Police were starting to push people back, but the camera caught the image. An image that was broadcast on live TV.

Danny's thoughts stopped momentarily.

Redford's head, well part of his head, was blown away. As in, it was now the red splatter on the steps and reporters and fans and camera lens.

The monster was dead.

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**Thanks for reading guys!**


	3. Moehewa Mo'i (Nightmare King)

**What's this one about?**

**Early writings. This one was going to be slightly sci-fi/fantasy, almost reminiscent of the Twilight Zone.**

* * *

**"Moehewa Mo'i (Nightmare King)"**

"_Then stop trying to throw logic at nightmares. Sometimes the monsters are real. Sometimes they're real and the only way to defeat them is to be the bigger monster."_

Shots fired. Officer down. Words that Detective Danny Williams never wanted to hear during a takedown. Especially when the only one he couldn't see standing in the warehouse was his partner. Heart in his throat, he ran through the crates to where he knew Lieutenant Commander Steven McGarrett had been positioned at the start of the raid. It was awful, he knew it, to hope that it was someone else. That it was one of the HPD backup.

But as he skidded around the corner the color drained from his face.

"Steve!" Danny dropped to his knees. He shouldered passed the uniform that was trying to apply pressure on the gunshot wound.

A copious amount of blood streamed through his fingers as he took over. Steve groaned. What were the use of vests if the people shooting at them always managed to get a bullet around them? They were supposed to be protection over the vital organs. A limb would heal if torn through. But no, it couldn't have been an arm or a leg shot. No, of course not. Super SEAL had used his trusty danger magnet to get led put through his collar bone.

Danny looked down at the pale face of his friend. "C'mon, babe. Don't do this to me. Open your eyes. Please, c'mon Steve."

Steve flinched under the pressure, groaning again. Slowly he opened his eyes, searching around until he landed on Danny's face over him. He shifted a little before halting with a hiss of pain.

"Don't move, don't move," Danny said. Cold fingers brushed his wrist. Danny removed one hand from the wound and gripped his partner's groping hand, mentally wincing. His hand was freezing. "C'mon, Steve. The paramedics are almost here. You've gotta hang on."

"Danny…." Steve hoarsely whispered. He lifted his head, coughing and spraying crimson. Damn bullet must've nicked his lung. A look at where the perp had fallen from the catwalk up above confirmed that the shot had been at a downward angle. Definitely could've hit his lung. "Hey…Danny…."

"Yeah, I'm right here. Keep breathing, bud," Danny didn't like this. His gut was foretelling the coming death speech. And he couldn't handle that. Flashes of Grace as she was dying came to mind as did the dead bodies of Meka and several other of his friends. "We ain't doin' the whole heart to heart. Save that for when you're actually going to die, huh?"

Steve defied all odds and gave him a smirk. "Yeah…sure…love ya…Danno…."

"Save the sap for later, okay?" Danny said. His heartrate sped up as Steve's hand went slack in his. He cupped his hand under his neck, begging his eyes to stay open. "Hey, hey, hey. Steve, stay awake. You can't die on me. Where're the EMTs?!"

Steve went limp in his hold. Helplessness sunk sharp talons into his chest as he could only watch his partner's eyes slip closed. Noise faded into a stream of muted waters, people trying to push him out of the way a blur in a timeless world.

He refused to let go. Pinpricks of ice encompassed his heart like barbed wire. A deep shiver thick as tar worked its way down his back as he pressed his forehead against his dead partner's. Sharp as a shard of glass, a tear ran from the corner of his eye down his face. His best friend of four years took a piece of his soul with him as his ceased to exist.

"Steve…."

* * *

Danny bolted upright in bed. Darkness surrounded him in a soothing blanket of protection. Icy sweat trickled down his back and chest, forcing his mind awake from the vivid nightmare. Breath came back to him in a relieving breeze drifting in from the open bedroom window. He rubbed his hands over his face and focused on returning his heart to a steadier rhythm.

"Danno, are you okay?"

"What?" Danny looked down to the other side of his bed. Grace's face was softly illuminated by the diffuse moonlight, but even then he could pick out the worry present with his daughter. "Yes, of course I'm okay, monkey."

"You kept saying Uncle Steve's name," Grace said.

Danny settled back down into the sheets. "It was just a nightmare. I'm okay now."

"Okay," Grace hesitantly rolled over and pulled the sheet up to her shoulders.

Nightmares. They were something else. Animals unto themselves. Grace was a very brave and normally chilled out girl, but something had awoken her earlier in the night. One of those animals had appeared. An animal terrifying enough for her to go to her father's room and timidly ask if she could sleep with him. Nightmares hadn't bothered her like that in years.

Danny draped his arm around her slight form, drawing comfort from her warmth and tranquil breathing. Frost in his veins gradually began to melt away along with the near solid chunk of ice that was his nightmare. He tucked his chin into the crook of Grace's neck and hoped that the beast wasn't lingering in the shadows of sleep, waiting patiently until his guard was dropped again.

"G'night, monkey," he whispered and inhaled deeply.

The smell of rain wafted through the screen on the window and tree branches tattered the ribbons of clouded moonlight that were cast on the floor. Silently the head turned away from looking in. Its shadow ghosted across the glass as it turned and melted away back into the dark of the brewing storm.

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**Thanks for reading guys!**


	4. Sniper Scene

**What's this one about?**

**A scene from a larger story that's never getting finished. I'm trying to sort through ones that are semi-finished, because a few just drop off mid sentence. XD**

* * *

**Sniper Scene**

Steve couldn't take the shot. Or maybe he wouldn't take the shot.

When had doing something like this caused him so much pause? He couldn't pause. It was a matter of life and death. Every day it was a matter of life and death for his team. Sometimes it was his life up in the air, sometimes the ever calm Chin, sometimes the defiant Kono, sometimes the loud Danny. They took turns being the one in the rifle crosshairs, the one with the knife against their throat, the one being dangled off a building ledge.

Today it was Danny's turn.

And he couldn't take the shot!

Not without hitting his partner. If he had a high powered rifle he would shoot through Danny's shoulder to peg the guy in the chest and risk facing the chewing out about how it wasn't civilized to shoot your partner later. But his hand gun didn't have enough power to make a bullet go through one body into the other.

Kono was nowhere even close with the sniper rifle. Chin was controlling the other suspects they had arrested. HPD backup was at least twenty minutes out.

He didn't have twenty minutes. He didn't even have the five minutes for Kono to get here.

"You're gonna let me go, McGarrett!"

Steve tightened his grip on his gun. The man was crazy. Crazy and smart, unfortunately. He knew how to use a human shield properly. His wild eyes gleamed in the fading light just over the edge of Danny's right shoulder, he kept the muzzle of his gun lodged just under his ribcage, and kept his left arm wrapped around his neck.

"Drop it, or I will drop your partner!" the guy warned, dragging Danny backwards with him as he tried to disappear into the shadows. "You know me, McGarrett. You read my file. So you know that I don't mind blood splatter. Whether it's Hawaiian blood, Asian blood, or haole blood like little New Jersey here, I don't care if I'm covered with it. I'm not squeamish."

"You don't want to do this, Fowler," Steve said. It was a feat to keep his voice strong and even, not clenched like his gut at seeing the glint of pale blue eyes watching him. Trusting him. "You kill him, I kill you."

"Yeah, yeah," Fowler waved him off with a few fingers. "But you know I'm not that worried about dying. I would prefer not to go out tonight, but if I do you can be damn sure I'm taking your partner with me."

"Steve," Danny's voice broke through Steve's encroaching red haze.

"Shut up," Fowler tightened his arm, earning a classic stink eye from Danny. "Shut up unless you want a bullet ricocheting around your ribcage. On second thought, that might actually be kind of fun to watch."

Danny grumbled, but kept his mouth shut. Both he and Steve knew that Fowler was not above shooting a cop for laughs.

Apparently he was done playing games, though.

"Later, McGarrett," Fowler said.

Steve tensed as his SEAL senses went off. The loosened grip on his partner, the tightened grip on the gun, how close Fowler was to the corner of the building. He was going to shoot and run.

A shot cracked through the night.

"Danny!" Steve yelled as he saw them both go down when his brain finally registered the sound. He peeled out of his place like a greyhound out of the gate.

Blood. There was blood on the ground. His heart stuttered and his breath hitched as one of the bodies in the heap sat up. Typically smoothed back blond hair was ruffled, his shirt was stained with red, and his eyes were just as round and confused as Steve's were.

"Danny?" Steve kicked the gun away from Fowler's limp hand and kneeled down next to his partner. He grasped his shoulder, needing to feel that he was alive. He hadn't been shot. Fowler had.

"Yeah, I'm good, Steve, I'm good," Danny patted his hand. Slowly he stood up with his partner. "Kono?"

"Not unless she found a shortcut," Steve said, shaking his head.

They both looked at the wound closer and traced its angle of trajectory upwards. The shot had been fired from the rooftop of the building. Something reflected the bright moonlight back at them before disappearing. Sniper rifle.

"Kono? Where are you?" Steve turned on his radio which had been off briefly.

"_Two buildings over. I heard the shot, is Danny okay?"_

"Yeah, I'm fine, babe," Danny replied into his own earwig set. His pale eyes caught Steve's dark ones. "So, if it wasn't Kono, who's up on the roof?"

* * *

**Thanks for reading guys!**


	5. Kau O ka Mo'o (Season of the Snake)

**What's this one about?**

**This one is another early one, from somewhere in late 2015. It was supposed to be a serial killer thriller with a big twist at the end. Unfortunately, I never got to that point.**

* * *

**"Kau O ka Mo'o (Season of the Snake)"**

It was dark, that of which she was thankful for. A full military drumline was thumping in her skull and any form of light may have made her pass out again. The floor was rough and cold under her, felt kind of weathered like it was old metal grating or something along those lines. It was also cool and shaded, clearly out of the Hawaiian sun inside a building.

She let out a stiff groan as she hefted her head up, inhaling slowly and deeply to even out the torrent of pain sloshing inside both her skull and body in general. Dampness and rusted metal pervaded her sinuses as she drew in another breath. Definitely an old weathered building.

_Drip. Drip._

Her ears focused on the too loud dripping in the eerily quiet place. Little splats of blood appeared on the floor below her face, petite crimson rosettes against the rust. After a few seconds of commanding limbs to move she put her hand to her nose to stifle the bleeding, pinching the vessels in the bridge.

She managed to sit up while keeping her nose pinched and glanced around her new surroundings.

It looked to be some form of abandoned factory, as if anything like this could happen in a functional factory or a non-abandoned place. Equipment appeared to have been cleaned out many years ago, much like removing the entrails of an animal only to leave behind the carcass with a metal skeleton and tin flesh. Plants had long since invaded the space in a testament to the fact that tough weeds and even flowers could get a grip anywhere.

She lowered her arm and paused. Tilting her head to the side she stared at the smudgy letters written on the inner of her forearm. It wasn't her hand writing, but was printed decently enough that she could still read it.

"_Run, run, as fast as you can, can't get away from me, I'm the gingerbread man,_" she read under her breath. "What the…."

Laughter bounced gaudily off the walls, dancing between all three stories of the building.

"…hell?"

* * *

"Chin! We got an ID on our guy's car?" Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett hollered from his office.

Lieutenant Chin Ho Kelly held up a few fingers in a 'have patience' gesture as he continued typing on the smart table. Truth of the matter was they didn't have _time_ to be patient. Bodies were piling up on their doorstep with startling speed.

One body, two bodies, three bodies, four. And there was certain to be more.

Steve palmed his forehead. Great, he was even starting to think like this guy with the whole rhyming scheme that had connected the cases together in the first place. Getting into a serial killer's head was not a fun choice but it was a must if they were going to catch him.

"Boss! I think I've got something!" Officer Kono Kalakaua beckoned him with a frantic wave of her hand as she set up shop on another window of the smart table.

Steve bolted from behind his desk and skidded to a stop next to the lanky officer, watching her sync up her iPad with the main network. She flicked a couple of pictures up onto the hanging screens. All of them were images from security footage they had pored over in the days previous and got nowhere.

"I know what you're thinking, but look at this," Kono redlined a small section in each image. "You see that?"

He cocked his head to the side, arms crossed firmly across his chest. A square object was at the center of each red circle and on its cover had some kind of childish picture. Was that really…?

"Is that a book?" Steve questioned.

Kono nodded vigorously and called to the fore a photo that wasn't from the security footage. "It's a children's book of rhymes. It has 'Humpty Dumpty', 'Mary Mary', 'Itsy Bitsy Spider', and-"

"'The Gingerbread Man'," Steve finished. It had all of the poems that had appeared with the victims and the one that he was using to taunt them. "He was there. He was at all those places and none of the cameras caught him."

"But when I asked if anybody saw who was sitting there one of the waitresses at the Village Inn said that she remembered him," Kono said. "She was able to sit down with a sketch artist and get this picture of him."

An incredibly realistic hand drawn picture filled the screens. Somedays Steve could kiss those sketch artists for nailing likenesses like they did. The man was on the younger side with a gaunt face covered in freckles and had a mess of curly hair.

"Got him," Chin announced with a grim smirk of satisfaction.

He put a security clip snapshot of a white Ford Taurus and a driver's license ID up next to the sketch. The picture on the ID matched nearly perfectly.

"Ronald McLean, twenty-four years old, born on Oahu. Lives by himself since his parents passed away in a car wreck five years ago. Works at the Barnes and Noble on Ala Moana," Chin read off. "Minor priors for setting a patch of the neighbor's yard on fire when he was twelve and for killing the neighbor's cat when he was fifteen."

"Address," Steve ordered.

As Chin sent the numbers to his phone Detective Danny Williams burst into the bullpen with his cell cradled between his shoulder and his ear while he was noting something down on a pad of paper.

"Yes, thank you, Duke. Tell your boys good work," Danny set the paper on the edge of the table and tucked his phone back into his pocket. "One of the sweeps we did turned up the name of our missing person. Her name is Mist Collins. She didn't show up for a swimming with the sharks thing with a local tour company even though the camera at her hotel has her leaving but never making it to her car."

"And she matches the others?" Steve asked.

"Perfectly. Caucasian, dark hair, blue eyes, athletic build, and a tourist," Danny listed off on his fingers. "She's been missing for roughly three hours."

"Damn it," Steve growled. Their guy, Ronald's, timetable had steadily grown shorter and shorter with each victim.

They didn't have long before another body showed up.

"Chin, get in touch with known associates. Kono, try and locate any property he may own or that may be in his family's name," Steve directed with a sharp edge to his voice. "Danny, we're gonna go pay a visit to his house."

As both the Navy SEAL and the Jersey detective vacated the bullpen Chin inhaled deeply and caught the worried eye of his cousin.

"Don't worry, cuz, we'll catch him," Chin assured her, and said a silent prayer to any deity listening that he wasn't lying.

* * *

**Thanks for reading guys!**


	6. Death Scene

**What's this one about?**

**Errr...this one was a vent piece from forever ago. Something like this always pops in whatever fandom I'm currently writing for. Beware of character death.**

* * *

**Vent Scene**

Steve slammed down on the gas, peeling around a corner sideways. Horns blared despite the blue and red lights flashing on the grill, despite the siren howling. Like a skier going down a slalom he maneuvered between the cars in his way.

A low moan from the passenger side drug his attention to it.

"Hang on, Danny," Steve urged, looking at his partner.

Rather, he looked at the growing splotch of blood on his abdomen. Danny pulled his fingers away slightly and leaned his head back. His teeth clenched together, eyes closing and breath coming in shallow pants.

"Danny, eyes open, partner, eyes open," Steve had to force himself to glance at the road before looking back, afraid that he would lose his partner in that short time.

"Steve," Danny hissed. His eyes opened slowly and locked onto his partner. Steve swallowed thickly at the pain and fear he saw in the paler than normal blue irises. "You're…gonna kill us…both with your driving."

Steve huffed a strangled laugh. "No, we'll get to the ER in one piece. Just hang on, buddy. Just hang on."

Danny shifted a bit. He leaned his head against the window and bit back a groan when he lifted his fingers again. They were slick with blood, but underneath the crimson both of them could see how ashen he was. Hesitantly he reached across and let his hand fall palm up on the center console.

"Steve…you gotta promise me one thing," Danny said softly.

"No, Danny, we ain't doing this, man," Steve shifted into a higher gear and gripped his partner's hand. His grip was weak and his fingers were cold, causing Steve to set two fingers against his wrist. Faint pulse.

"Steve," Danny cut him off sharply. Though quiet, his voice was still fiery. "You gotta…take care of…Grace for me."

"Danny," Steve glanced over at him, seeing those glassy eyes narrowing at him. They were tired looking, so tired. But they were still hanging onto something. "You know that I'll take care of Grace, but you're her dad. She needs you more than me. You've gotta hang around longer, man."

"Yeah," Danny sighed and closed his eyes. "Thanks, babe."

Steve's heart suddenly found itself in his mouth. He couldn't feel a pulse beneath his fingers anymore. Nearly driving off the road, he resituated his hand so he had a better grip. Nothing.

"Danny, c'mon, wake up!" Steve looked across at him. The New Jersey boy was completely still, hand lax and head slumped against the glass. His chest wasn't even moving. "Danny!"

Against better instinct Steve ripped the Camaro to the side of the road. He threw it in park and unbuckled, springing from the driver's door and around the front. With shaking hands he pulled open the passenger side door and caught his partner. He drug him from the seat and sat in the grass on the edge of the road.

"Danny, c'mon," Steve roughly tapped his cheek.

Receiving no response he pressed two fingers under his jaw. No pulse. Choking on a cry of disbelief, he sat still for a moment with his partner in his arms. Feeling incredibly empty and at a loss, deriving no comfort from running his fingers across the slick blond hair, he held him close. He rested his chin on his dead partner's head, tears freely leaving streaks on his face.

"Danno…."

* * *

**Thanks for reading guys!**


	7. A to Z of Animals

**What's this one about?**

**Pretty much one of the first things I ever wrote for this show back in 2015. It was a bit ambitious and I overestimated my abilities at the time. It was supposed to be an A to Z story, but obviously, as you can see, I only got to C.**

* * *

**"A to Z of Animals"**

**Abnormal Ants**

It was always sunny in Hawaii. Always. It was unnaturally sunny. Go figure that the one day it wasn't sunny was the day that Danny would've loved it to be so. Tropical storms only made raids all that more dangerous. It was an unsettling feeling, trying to get your plan together and your weapons in order in the whipping wind and first smatterings of rain.

Steve pointed to him and then to himself before pointing to the front door. He then gestured to Kono and Chin, sweeping his hand around back. It was a simpler and quieter way of communicating with the wind. And their suspect wouldn't hear them, either. Like anyone could hear anything over the ruckus of slapping palm tree fronds or the choppy waves of the unsettled ocean under the back deck of the house anyways.

Danny braced himself and popped the door open with a backwards kick. Steve swept in and he followed, both of them quickly and efficiently checking off each room of the house before meeting in the middle with Kono and Chin. They lowered their weapons slowly.

"Looks like our guy was here earlier," Kono said. She held up a plate with a half-eaten bagel on it.

"See if you can find anything that suggests where he's disappeared to," Steve directed.

The group broke up to search the house. It was a very open floor plan so they could keep each other in eyesight fairly well. Clean, simple, and well organized. Everything was so well organized in the house that finding something out of place was obvious.

"Hey, look at this," Danny picked up a stack of mail that looked like it had been tossed aside quickly. A familiar note sat on top. As Steve walked over to see what he had found he held up the thick square of paper with a golden emblem on it. "That's the logo on our guy's hoodie, isn't it?"

"Someone must've tipped him off we were coming," Steve shook his head. "Seriously, who is this guy? Every time we come at him he up and disappears. He's way more than a small time thief."

"Boss, come look at these," Kono called.

Danny and Steve left the mail on the counter, following the youngest teammate's voice. They rounded a corner into a living room with minimalistic furniture and several pictures on the walls. A cool breeze snuck in through the big glass doors that were currently opened out onto the deck that hung twenty feet above the water. The flow of air had scattered several unframed photos that must've started out on the coffee table.

"Seems like he loves his animals," Kono was crouched down on the ground, gathering all of the skewed photos up. She handed a stack to Steve.

"Dogs, cats, snakes, fish, frogs," Steve sorted through the many, many animals presented on each photo.

Danny's eyebrows shot up and he tapped his finger on the next photo in the set. "Woah, that is not a normal pet. That little fluff ball is illegal and will grow up to be a man eater."

Steve flipped the photo around to show the other two. It looked like it had been taken somewhere in the jungle during midday. A man stood in the middle smiling with a chain in his hand. And at the end of the chain was a tiger cub.

"I think I know what our guy is," Steve handed the photos off to Chin before he approached the large glass aquarium against the left hand wall of the room.

Danny hesitantly followed him while the cousins started bagging and tagging. He scratched his neck as both he and his partner stared into the apparently empty tank. That was concerning.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like our guy gave the resident of the tank an escape route when he left," Danny gestured to the chunk of wood that had clearly been misplaced and leaned against the inside of the tank, forming a ladder to the rim and an easy way to go over it. He scratched at his back, feeling itchy at the thought of something wondering around the house alongside them. "What do you think was in here?"

"I don't know," Steve steadied himself on one leg, using his foot to rub the sudden tickle on his ankle. "Lots of plant debris and dead wood in the tank. Could be some kind of snake or a scorpion or even a tarantula."

"Do not mention tarantulas or scorpions, Steven," Danny shuddered at the thought of something that big on the loose.

They turned around at the sudden slap. Chin looked up at them before looking under his hand. There was a black smudge on his arm of what probably used to be some kind of bug before it picked the wrong man to crawl on. Of course, the single slap wasn't enough. Kono also took after her cousin and slapped the side of her neck.

"Ow," she muttered. In a flurry of movement she started to swat at her back, jumping up off her knees. "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!"

"Kono?" Steve walked towards her while throwing an arm over his head to scratch between his shoulders under his Kevlar.

Danny knew that this was going to go downhill as soon Steve was ripping off his vest to get at his back better. Kono had already shed her protective gear and he and Chin were in the middle of doing the same. It was only when he got a hand actually under his shirt did he realize what was behind the attack. Apparently his partner had figured it out, too.

"It's ants! They're all over the place," Steve said as he worked to knock the on-second-look-not-so-little black bugs off his arms. "Why are they in the house? Where did they-"

The four of them looked at the glass aquarium missing its lid. It was definitely big enough to hold an ant colony.

"We gotta get out of here!" Danny yelled.

If he had not been being attacked by ants as well he would've recorded his teammates' funky dances, but he didn't look much better. All four of them hopping around the room and peeling off shirts as the slight pinpricks turned into fiery itchy bites. They could see the black ants on the floor now. The insects were swarming in dizzying patterns across the hardwood.

Danny kept swiping at them on his back and chest, could feel them biting his arms and legs. They were everywhere. Literally everywhere. He was ready to take an acid bath if it would get the buggers off of him. Knock off one ant, five more replaced it. Like a hydra from Hell. A look around the room confirmed that even super SEAL Steve was starting to lose his patience and grow desperate.

"Over the balcony!" Steve bolted across the room.

Chin followed him without a second thought, both of them throwing themselves over the balcony. Danny and Kono shared a look before deciding that any plan, suicidal or not, was better than the current one. They ran onto the deck and gripped the railing, seeing their teammates down below. Despite his hatred of the ocean, another volley of vicious bites sent him over the edge with Kono not far behind.

Steve ran his hand through his hair, spiking it with saltwater as Danny resurfaced from his plunge. Ants floated around them on the dicey waves. Danny slicked his hair back and ran his hands down his chest and back, knocking off any unwanted clingy insects. Everyone else was doing the same. He reached over and rubbed a few pests off Kono's shoulder before looking over at Steve bobbing in the waves next to him.

"Ants may have officially taken the spot of spiders on my list of things I hate," Danny said.

"Usually black carpenter ants aren't that aggressive," Steve said, leaning over and flicking another ant off his head.

"So boss, you said you know what our guy is? It wouldn't happen to be Ant Man, would it?" Kono laughed slightly in an effort to mask the stinging itch they were all still feeling.

"He's a black market animal trader," Steve pointed back up to the house. "That's why he has all those pictures. Must be insurance or evidence of completed business."

"What do we do now?" Danny asked. His limbs were already growing tired of treading water in this bad weather.

"Now? We go back to the Palace and gather better info on our guy," Steve started to swim towards the not so distant shore.

"After we get these bites taken care of," Chin threw out from the back of the funny little paddling pack.

"Second," Danny and Kono both agreed at the same time.

From the lead Steve added, "You're damn right."

* * *

Steve couldn't believe how many little red dots he could still see on his arms. Granted, he had been told it would take at least a few hours for the bites to quit itching and being red. Sighing at that piece of information, he continued to rub the towel over his head.

"Hey, babe. You good?" Danny asked as he walked into his office already clothed in new slacks and a new shirt, hair immaculately slicked back. He was also scratching at his forearm where there were similar red dots.

"I'm good. Hey, Max said don't scratch, remember?" Steve tossed the towel over the back of his chair, content with the state of his hair as is.

"Why are ant bites this itchy? I have never had this bad of a problem with ant bites," Danny said, stuffing his hands into his pockets to keep them from attacking the red dots all over. He followed Steve as he walked out. "This is not okay. I have ant bites where no one should ever have ant bites."

"Okay, too much info," Steve held up a hand. He definitely didn't want to hear more. He had the same problem. It was very awkward. No more was said on the subject matter because his phone started ringing. The name that appeared on the screen gave him a reason to answer hastily. "Governor Denning. Yes Sir, I'll be over immediately."

Danny perked a brow at him. Steve shrugged and took off for the parking lot, leaving his teammates to see what they could gather now knowing that their guy wasn't just a thief. He was also curious as to what the Governor was going to say.

Even in the rain it didn't take him long to get to the Governor's office. Shoes giving little wet squeaks as he tromped upstairs, Steve made it to the top and greeted the secretary sitting in the corner. She waved him through into the office without making him wait.

"Commander McGarrett," Governor Denning nodded at him as he pushed through the heavy double doors. A woman in black slacks and a loose fitting top was standing next to him, busily gathering her scattered papers up off the table. "This is Juniper Schaaf. And she has an issue she would like to discuss with you."

"Miss Schaaf," Steve shook her hand as she extended it. "What do you need to discuss? I'm kind of in the middle of a case."

"This concerns your thief that you recently discovered was a black market animal trader," Denning clarified.

"Do you know who he is?" Steve asked.

Schaaf shook her head. "But we do know of him. And you are correct, he is an illegal animal trader. That's what I need to discuss with you. This man has been known to occasionally leave animals in his safe houses and warehouses. Dangerous animals."

"Probably worse than ants, right?" Steve shook his head.

"Way worse. Our concern is that a lot of these animals are rare and endangered. Thus they need to be kept alive at all costs," she said.

"I'm giving you a No Kill order, McGarrett," Denning said. It sounded a little backwards than the usual order, but it still stood. "You and your team are not to kill any animal you come in contact with unless absolutely necessary."

"And what do you deem 'absolutely necessary', Governor? Before it attacks one of my teammates or as it's mauling one of them?" Steve questioned.

Denning narrowed his eyes at him. "You and the rest of the Five-0 Task Force are intelligent and quick witted people. You can manage without dropping everything in your way."

"And please, Commander McGarrett, if you find any animals call me," she handed him a small slip of paper with her name and number on it. "I don't have many people on the island, but I can send them in to help contain animals and get them delivered to the proper care facilities."

Steve stuffed the number in his pocket and bid his farewell to her and Denning. He was barely down the stairs when his phone started ringing again. Glancing at the name he concluded that his partner must have a sixth sense for this kind of thing.

"Danny, you guys got anything yet?" Steve asked immediately. "Okay, you and Chin go check that out. Kono and I will go back to the house and see what else we can find. And Danny? Let the others know we've got a No Kill order."

* * *

**Biting Boas**

Chin and Danny swept into the house after finding the front door partially open. Both silently prayed there wasn't a tiger waiting around the corner. The car ride over had been full of discussing what to do about this No Kill situation. Not that either man really wanted to shoot any animal, but they had Steve's same question. When was it deemed necessary?

Even as they broke apart to clear the house Chin was still contemplating where this case was going. Admittedly, chasing a black market animal trader was more exciting than chasing a low level thief. Though it was debatable whether or not exciting was a good or a bad thing.

Seeing that the kitchen of the small house was clear, he tucked his gun back into its holster and started to rifle through the piles of mail on the counter. Mostly junk mail. A few bills with the name of the alias that they had identified as the man they were looking for. They still didn't have a real name for him. No, he proved far more careful than they had originally expected.

Chin tilted his head to the side at the glass bowl sitting on the counter. Two goldfish peered out at him, silently mouthing words. They lazily swam around the little skull decoration in the center and appeared fat and content. So either their suspect or a caretaker had been here recently.

A startled yelp ricocheted sharply in the cozy shack.

"Danny!" Chin yanked out his weapon again and ran back through the kitchen door to the other side of the house.

He ticked off the master bedroom and the bathroom before finally finding his teammate in what may have been an office room once, but had been transformed into a reptile room. The light overhead was a natural daylight bulb. Something good for the scaly beings that inhabited the numerous glass aquariums on the shelves around the room. It was humid inside the small space as well, really giving off the air of a rainforest. Immediately he picked out lizards, turtles, snakes, and other more amphibious creatures.

But what he zoomed in on was the large pure white snake oozing over the floor. His eyes tracked up from its tail to its muscled body that was being fended off and eventually landed on its narrow head. Ah. That's why Danny had screamed.

"If you're done staring at me like a kid watching a snake eat a mouse, could you give me a hand?" Danny glared up at him, but there was a pleading look that flickered over his pale blue eyes.

"Sorry, brah," Chin holstered his gun and kneeled down beside him. He analyzed the situation carefully, trying to figure out how best to deal with it. "Well, the easiest way I see of fixing this is to cut its head off."

Danny shook his head, flexing his shaking fingers. "I worked a drug trafficking case in Jersey once where one of the head honchos had an albino boa. These things are practically non-existent in the wild and fetch for a really high price."

"So our No Kill order applies here, then," Chin sighed. He maneuvered around and gently pressed his knee on top of the boa's writhing body, keeping it from constricting around Danny's arm. Small, clear backwards facing teeth had been driven into his left wrist, so pulling out was not an option. "How are you not freaking out?"

"Oh, trust me. I am very much freaking out on the inside," Danny assured him. "It just doesn't seem very conducive to start thrashing around with a snake clamped on my forearm. This had better not get infected, I remember our briefing in Jersey about not getting bit. So much bacteria, so much bacteria."

Chin put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. "Calm down. I've got an idea." He brandished his knife and earned a warning look from Danny. "It's cool, I'm not going to kill it."

Carefully, Chin grabbed a hold of the snake's snout between his forefinger and thumb. With a steady hand he slid the blade across Danny's arm, the teeth coming loose without having to be ripped backwards. Getting the idea of what he was doing, Danny took a hold of its nose while Chin dislodged its lower jaw. Finally, after much prying the teeth came out.

"There's one crisis averted," Chin held the snake's head clamped shut while checking his teammate's injury with the other hand. "We need to get that checked out, brah. Get it disinfected."

"Yeah, sounds good to me," Danny held his bleeding arm to his chest and stood up. "We need to call Steve and let him know to get in touch with the animal lady so she can send her people out here to collect all this, and get a hold of Lukela to get crime scene techs out here to gather evidence."

On their way back out after Chin had placed the aggressive white snake back into its tank and secured the lid, he snagged a dish cloth that was strung through one of the cupboard handles. He handed it to Danny who tenderly wrapped it around the small bloody pricks.

Danny muttered as they arrived at the Camaro. "That stings worse than the ant bites."

Chin looked at him and then his arm, then at him again. Danny made a face and reluctantly handed over his keys. It just wasn't fair. He never got to drive his own car. The motor gods had decreed that he was forever to be a passenger.

"Don't worry, I don't drive like Steve," Chin assured him. They slipped into the car and Chin pulled out his phone. First he called Sergeant Duke Lukela and filled him in on the goings on so far, then he hit his speed dial and put it on speaker as he carefully guided the Camaro out of the driveway onto the sleepy road. "Hey Steve, our guy definitely was at the shack recently."

"_That's an improvement from us. There's nothing at the first house, besides a few ants that the techs failed to suck up with their bug vacuums. What did you guys find?"_

"Some mail addressed to one of our guy's aliases and a room full of reptiles that might be rare or endangered. You should get a hold of that Ms. Schaaf and see if she can get some of her people out here to collect them," Chin said, saving the other piece of news until last. "Besides that, there wasn't much. Crime scene techs are coming out to dust for prints and look for better evidence."

"_Okay, good. Maybe we'll actually find something that'll lead us to this guy. Kono and I are going back to HQ, we'll meet you there."_

"We'll be a little late," Chin said. A glance at the detective in the passenger seat told him that the bite still hadn't let up with its stinging.

"_Why?"_

That was a definite drop in tone and both of them could hear the tension in that single word. "Easy, boss. I'm just taking Danny to the hospital."

"_What? Why? What happened?"_ That was Kono's voice.

"I got bit by a snake, that's what happened," Danny answered.

"It was just a boa, but the bite needs to be cleansed and bandaged so it doesn't get infected," Chin said calmly so no one freaked out. "And yes, boss, the snake is still alive and locked in its tank."

Silence for a few moments with quiet murmurs in the background and the roar of the Silverado's engine. "_Okay. We'll meet you guys there and go over our evidence, see what we've got."_

* * *

**Cantankerous Crocodiles**

It was nearing late afternoon and the storm still hadn't let up when Steve and Danny closed in on the decently sized house. It was larger than the first house, yet hopefully didn't house any reptiles like the shack had. At least that hadn't turned out as bad as it could have. It could've been a rattlesnake or a cobra loose. Steve made sure that his partner wasn't at risk of infection at the hospital before hauling him back to the Palace for them to reevaluate what they were doing.

The final consensus had been to re-interview the witnesses. Chin and Kono went to another house across the island on the North Shore while Steve and Danny had decided to go talk to the witness that lived along the ocean near Waikiki.

Danny slicked back his hair once they got into the shelter of the porch. Rain spots dotted his shoulders as well as Steve's and the surprisingly warm water dripped down the back of his neck. He caught his partner's eye staring at the white bandages on his forearm when he raised it up.

"I don't even know how you could think that this was anywhere near your fault," Danny said, though it wasn't quite guilt he was seeing. What was that? Admiration?

"Chin said you handled being bit extremely well," Steve shrugged as he rang the doorbell. "I saw men in India climb a tree when a water snake swam near them. I'm just impressed. Maybe you're not as city as you claim."

"I'll have you know that I have had more than my fair share of run-ins with animals in Jersey," Danny replied. "Mostly dogs, but there were snakes, too."

Steve shook his head with a small smile. He had to give his partner credit. He didn't know how well he would've handled a massive boa curling around his arm with its teeth sunk firmly in his wrist. A frown worked its way onto his face when he heard no noise from inside after the second ring. The car was in the driveway, and no way any sane person would be out in the surf with this weather.

"Mr. Garcia?" He wrapped his knuckles on the door, startled when it creaked open of its own accord.

He drew his gun as did his partner. Slowly they crept inside the nice house. Steve peeled off to the right while Danny went left, taking the living room and the kitchen this time. And this time, he was very alert to any snakes that might be hiding on a shelf ready to strike at him.

Steve checked the office and then the master bedroom. Cautiousness had been strictly ordered after their earlier ordeals with animals. Though Garcia wasn't a suspect, if their thief/animal trader got to him hoping to keep him silent he might've left a nasty surprise for whoever came looking. The man had a bad habit of cleaning up after himself and leaving calling cards.

Next was the master bathroom. What was inside gave Steve pause for consideration. The bathtub had been converted into a holding tank a third full of water with a branch of hefty driftwood providing a bit of land for the occupant. Luckily this one was not loose and it was young.

"This case just gets stranger and stranger," Steve pulled out his phone and snapped a shot of the baby crocodile basking on the wood. After he checked the spare bedroom and the linen closet, he shouted, "Clear!"

Once he was back in the living room he grew concerned that he hadn't heard his partner yet.

Just as he was about to call his name, Danny's voice drifted from behind the closed swinging kitchen door. "Steve, come see this."

Steve holstered his gun at the calm tone of his partner. Obviously he wasn't in distress or else he would've noticed. Danny said that he had a face and the detective certainly seemed to have learned all of them, but he had a tone and Steve had learned all of them as well. He started to push open the door.

"Careful, babe, don't make any sudden moves," and that was Danny's tone of utter seriousness and calm mixed together.

Steve cracked open the door and glanced around its edge. His partner was crouched up on top of the counter, gun at rest against his knee as he stared down at something on the floor. When he shifted his eyes to see what he nearly laughed, but went for a smirk instead.

"Okay, so the funny thing about this is that this is not the first time I've run into a croc," Danny said chattily from where he was perched. He looked across at his partner and pointed to the easily nine hundred pound adult crocodile laying on the floor with its head turned up at him, tracking his movement. "People used to get gators and crocs when they were tiny and bring 'em back home to Jersey, and then when they got too big to handle they'd just let them go in flood canals, park ponds, in the sewer, really anywhere there was water."

While his partner talked Steve ran through his options of how to get the reptilian beast to go back out the open patio doors to the pond in the back he could see. He also wondered that if this illegal pet was inside, maybe Garcia had become lunch for it.

"This one time we had this crime scene that we had to get to. A body had been dumped on one of the little islands in this big pond at this park," Danny continued, wary of the crocodile as it scooted across the tiles closer to the counter. "Since I was the rookie I had to stand watch on the bank of the island while the techs collected evidence and the body, because this big old croc had been stalking around in the water nearby. My nerves were so fried. I thought facing down suspects was bad, but they couldn't just disappear into the murk in the blink of an eye."

Steve nodded. He could see a back way into the dining room that connected to the kitchen that would allow him to slip passed the beast unnoticed and lure it outside. He explained as much to his partner before running around that way.

"Hey, don't underestimate this thing, Steve. They can move fast when they want to," Danny warned as his partner crept through the back way.

"I know, Danny, I've seen them chase tigers out of the water," Steve replied. He darted through the open patio door and glanced around for something to use.

The crocodile turned its head at the sharp clacking of the broomstick on the cement outside. It sat completely still, as if debating its options. Stay where it was and possibly snag a small, broad shouldered hunk of meat or haul tail to the door and take a shot at the tall, lean hunk of meat with the broom. A low hiss brushed through its interlocking teeth. But its mind made up when it saw movement.

Danny pushed himself back as far as he could, nearly falling in the sink, when the crocodile lifted itself up and snapped its jaws across the counter where his foot had been. It was no small relief that he knew their body weight on land inhibited their movement. If it had started off in the water it would be sitting on the counter with him from the momentum it could gain with one push of its paddle tail.

He was, however, concerned when he saw movement. "Steve! Six o'clock!"

Steve barely looked behind him before he was back through the door and on the table. Another crocodile had slid up on the grass without him even noticing. How could something that large sneak around? It was bigger than the one in the kitchen with a massive amount of body armor to lug around. Whatever its methods, it was sitting in the threshold of the door now, eyeing him hungrily.

"We can't shoot them, we can't run, and apparently they're immune to distractions," Danny listed off on his fingers. "Oh, and they're staring at us like we're prime ribs that they found on a deserted island."

Steve shook his head and pulled out his phone. He held it up to his ear, listening as it almost rang through before a breathless voice answered. "Chin? What's wrong?"

Danny scratched at an ant bite absently as he watched his partner's face go through several contortions ranging from concerned to angry to relieved. That told him what he mostly needed to know.

"Us?" Steve looked across at Danny sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter, mirroring his position on the dining room table. "We're trapped by cantankerous crocodiles. Yeah, big ones. Alright, tell Kono to tell Schaaf about our situation. Later."

"Cantankerous crocodiles, huh?" Danny asked, smirking.

"What?" Steve raised a brow.

"Oh, I just didn't know that you had such a big vocabulary," Danny chuckled. He thoroughly enjoyed the annoyed look he received.

Steve sat silent for a while, trying to recall if he had ever learned how long a crocodile would sit and wait for something to move. If these two lovely scaly beasts were anything to go by, they would wait until someone slipped up and got close enough. "So, it disappeared into the pond without warning."

"What?" Danny asked, confused.

"Your story about your run in with the croc in New Jersey," Steve clarified.

Danny nodded his head and leaned back against the wall. "Big guy dove under the water and I lost visual. I had no clue what to do. So I just waited until he surfaced again, which he never did. Next thing I know I can hear one of the techs yelling.

"When I whipped around the croc was trying to drag the dead guy, _our _dead guy, into the water by the foot. Technically we weren't supposed to discharge our weapons at it as the reptile control guys were coming to get it that afternoon."

"Did it get off with the body?" Steve asked.

"No, because being the brilliant rookie that I was I decided that I should pepper spray it," Danny tried to hold a straight face but couldn't.

Steve snorted with laughter. "And how'd that work out for ya?"

"Well, Gustav there let go of the body," Danny weighed his hands about evenly. "And proceeded to come after me. I will tell you Steve, never before and never again will I climb a twiggy tree as fast as I did then."

"What about the other guys?"

"Big boy didn't bother with them. He slipped back into the water. I didn't think reptiles could make such strange sounds, but I guess most people grumble and yell when they've been pepper sprayed," Danny finished.

Both of them couldn't help it, they broke up into laughter. Steve could just imagine his partner balanced precariously at the top of a wilting tree.

* * *

**Thanks for reading guys!**


	8. Pau Ahi (Burned)

**What's this one about?**

**First chapter of a fic about undercover work gone wrong. It involved a character from Danny's past (someone who people would recognize if they read my other fic Dragons). This first bit was inspired by Qweb's fic "What if I was Wrong"?**

* * *

**"Pau Ahi (Burned)"**

Smells. He could smell things.

Vision impaired by a pounding headache and hearing slightly muffled, he went to his sense of smell. His nose was the only thing that didn't hurt. Well, that wasn't completely true. The bridge of it was throbbing and felt like it was crusted with blood.

But he would have to rely on it at the moment if he wanted to figure out where he was. Or what exactly had happened, even though that one might have to wait. Clawing at the memories only produced pinpricks of pain behind his eyes.

So he inhaled as much as his battered ribcage allowed him to.

Stale sweat. Barely there scentless soap. Earthy mud. Laundry detergent. Faint hint of sea salt. Soft mint. Hair oils. Coconut rum. Honest dirt. Old metal. Motor grease. And coppery blood.

That wasn't good. The scents racked his brain. Detective Danny Williams winced as his thoughts gathered the memories together. But he had enough information to hustle all those scents into a vague picture.

Danny sighed something of a relief. The sweat, scentless soap, and sea salt were very familiar. He knew that combination of scents and its many variants. It was inevitable after being partnered with someone for almost five years. All the other scents were still being cudgeled together. The blood was a bit disconcerting, but that smell could have been coming from any number of places. It had to be something nonthreatening. His stomach clenched as his pessimistic brain ran through all kinds of bloody injuries that could have been inflicted, most of them fatal.

Calm down. Breathe. In and out. Danny groaned. Breathing hurt.

His resting place shifted a little. At least he knew that his partner was alive. Take that, pessimism. Super SEAL was not fatally injured. Slowly his orientation in space alerted him that he was sprawled out on his stomach on top of his partner's legs. Danny started to push himself off and nearly yelped as something in his side grabbed.

Ribs yelling at him to be more careful, he slowly eased himself off to the side. A weight against him moved. With his head still throwing daggers at the inside of his skull, his thoughts muddled together to try and finish the picture that had been started.

A moment passed with him completely still.

And then it all whacked him at once. His eyes snapped open, being spared by diffuse lighting instead of intense sunlight like there should have been. Danny dug one hand into his hair at the flare of pain. With more calculated movements he rolled onto his back.

They were in the back of a van. Tossed haphazardly would've been a more appropriate wording, something in the back of his mind said. The dim lighting was from the interior bulb that pops on when a door is left cracked open, but there were no engine sounds. No one was up front. They were completely alone in the back.

From the lack of constriction around his chest he knew that he was no longer wearing his Kevlar vest. When he slipped his hand down to his waist he couldn't feel his gun, either.

With a groan Danny sat up. He braced himself one handedly on his partner's leg while simultaneously checking for signs of breathing. Though he still looked out cold his ribcage expanded and contracted with even breaths. He checked the other person. Also breathing. That done, he looked up to the cab with his heightened angle.

His breath caught. Now he was the one not breathing well, which was no good with fractured ribs.

Danny scooted away so his back was pressed against the other side of the van while keeping his eyes locked on the front windshield. It was dark outside. Very dark, but unnaturally so.

Keep calm. Frantic breathing would only reduce his oxygen and irritate his ribs. Suddenly feeling very uncharacteristically insecure and panicky, he tucked his knees up to his chest. Owlishly blinking in the crappy lighting he analyzed the darkness outside.

It was all uneven.

Clumpy and pebbly.

Packed down.

Brown.

Danny swallowed thickly. They were buried alive.

* * *

**Thanks for reading guys!**


	9. Holoholona Loko (Animal Inside)

**What's this one about?**

**First chapter and a half of a ridiculous fic. Ahaha...not sure what it says about me when I say this one wasn't even the craziest of my ideas. This one was the result of watching the Jurassic Park trilogy, plus Jurassic World.**

* * *

**"Holoholona Loko (Animal Inside)"**

It had been a brilliant idea.

No, strike that. It had been a daring idea. Dangerous and exciting, sure to get them recognized for the rest of their lives by the world at large. There would be awards, interviews, books written, maybe even a movie or TV show produced. It was right within their grasp, it was so tangible.

"_Mr. Cutting, what first tipped you and your team off?"_

All it takes is some digging, is how he would answer the interviewer. That's all it really took. Though, no one ever listened to him at first because he was labeled a 'conspiracy theorist'. They weren't conspiracies if they were true, however!

And oh God, were they true.

"_Where did you find such an incredible team, Mr. Cutting, to pull off this unbelievable feat?"_

The internet.

He almost snorted aloud at that one. Where else would you find like-minded people who believed in the same things you did and were willing to gather together in the strangest meeting ever? Five other people, to be specific. All very talented in their own fields, most of them even being able to pass for normal in society. They had all believed him, all found the same information that he had.

"_So all it took was a pilot, an environmentalist, two computer techs, and an animal behaviorist plus you, Mr. Cutting, as team leader to do this?"_

Why yes, that was all it took. Sometimes less is more. A small group meant less possibilities that someone would betray them. It took that and months of planning. Factor in all the tracking and hacking that they had to do, and it seemed like a year's worth of work, but they had managed to do it four months, one week, and three days.

Four months of tedious research and surveillance. The computer techs filtered through online article after article, analyzed satellite and tourist photos, and finally set up the spy cams that they had gotten from Radio Shack. Through the grapevines at work both the environmentalist and the behaviorist narrowed down what exactly they were dealing with. The pilot looked at the more military and covert part of the op, detailing out weaknesses and chinks in their target's armor. And finally his job as team leader had been to scout their final destination. Somewhere isolated, somewhere compatible, somewhere hard to get to but not impossible.

They set the date after finalizing coordinates and whoosh! Off they went.

One week of converging on their target. The environmentalist had to drive down from Denver, the behaviorist caught a train from San Diego, the pilot took a short hop down from Billings, one computer tech chartered a plane from Mumbai, the other a bus from Salt Lake City, and he had to board a jet from Honolulu. But his hodge-podge team all made it to the same place.

Three days to get the job done. Too many details and plans and blown plans and plans made on the fly to count.

"_Please Mr. Cutting, can you recount exactly what happened?"_

What happened?

He blinked foggily as he came to a pause in what he was doing. What had happened, exactly?

Oh, yeah.

The op went perfectly, improvised plans and all. Perfect in the sense that no one died. As perfectly as one could expect in this particular kind of situation, anyway. It was the after party that hadn't quite been so spectacular. No cigar on that one.

The pilot and he were going to fly back to the nearest major city, which happened to be Honolulu, to get the newspapers and news stations on their story. The environmentalist, behaviorist, and one computer tech were going to stay behind and monitor everything from their hiding place. The other computer tech was keeping them under the radar from the mainland, making sure their movements weren't tracked or their radio signals weren't picked up by someone unwanted.

Somehow, someway, a team of people in black found them in their supposedly unfindable location before they could even get to their helicopter. They had full body armor. They had automatic weapons. A military helicopter. Strange emblems. Grenades. A real professional team of somethings or others. Ten pros against five conspiracy theorists? Not a fair fight.

But it wasn't the scary team dressed all in black that had done it. No. They hadn't started it.

One by one men disappeared.

In a surge of panic the vivid memory sent him scrabbling the rest of the way up the tree. His hands drug him into a fork in the branches where he wedged himself firmly, trembling like the leaves that shuddered in the pleasant late evening breeze. He watched the unseen hand of the wind send a ripple across the jungle treetops that sloped down the valley. Moonlight shimmered on them, scattering ribbons of diffuse light clear down to the shore where the ocean stretched away into nothingness for miles and miles on end.

It was almost calming. Very pretty, he thought. But nothing could beat his apartment back on Oahu, his old couch and surround sound TV. If he had been back at home at this time of night he would probably be duking it out with his downstairs neighbor on some video game. He couldn't remember. Was it his night to choose what game they played? Maybe it was Tyson's night. Yeah, Friday nights were definitely Tyson's nights. Neither of them had to go to work in the morning, though his friend had mentioned that he had a romantic getaway weekend planned with his girlfriend. How did that punk have a girlfriend while he didn't? He was the mastermind! He was the adventurer!

He was the mastermind. He was the adventurer. He was the one that had gotten himself and the others mixed up into this whirlwind. Really, it was more of a whirlpool than a whirlwind. Everything was going down very quickly, he thought as he tightened his sweaty fingers around the stick he had been carrying around for the better part of the day. He couldn't lose this stick. It was already sharpened to a fine point and his knife was laying somewhere in the dense undergrowth. He doubted he could make another one without it. Forget his surround sound, his wireless controller, and his stocked refrigerator. He would be happy with a flashlight or a handyman tool. Small comforts made a world of difference during this fiasco. That was something he hadn't thought about until yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon, the men had started to disappear one by one.

A man lost in the jungle. Another gone from the back of the pack. Orders ping-ponged around the men in black and before his meager team of five knew what was going on they were being herded back to the army looking helicopter the pros had rode in on.

One more man gone between here and there.

The helicopter was inoperable. Its control panel had been…decimated.

He shivered against the warm breeze and humid air. One by one they had disappeared. Except this morning when two men had screamed and then were dead. Ten pros against five conspiracy theorists wasn't a fair fight. This thing against ten pros and five conspiracy theorists? Shooting fish in a barrel.

"_Mr. Cutting, why did you lead your friends into this death trap? Why did you get them all killed?"_

He didn't know. He didn't know.

Quietly and all alone on this Godforsaken island, he sobbed himself into a light sleep.

* * *

**New Chapter**

Detective Danny Williams leaned back into his patio chair and watched the rain continue to delicately drizzle down from the safety of his awning. He was eternally grateful that the blinding Hawaiian sun was finally hidden behind big gray thunderheads. His pale eyes could take a rest from squinting today, though it was his day off and he wasn't planning to actually go out of his house much.

"Figures," Danny laughed quietly to himself as he reached over to the small round table and curled his fingers around his mug of coffee.

Sipping on his still hot coffee he mused about how Hawaii was the only place he had been where the temperature didn't drop when it rained, it just increased the humidity by a ridiculous percentage. Though it was barely even nine in the morning it was already well into the eighties. That's what had prompted him into just staying in his boxers and a t-shirt.

With a content sigh he pulled a strawberry from the yogurt he had been eating on. At his partner's and daughter's urging he had decided to try eating healthier, even going as far as swapping malasadas for yogurt with fresh fruit. Don't get him wrong, though, he just hadn't been out of his house that morning to get malasadas. That was still on his agenda for the day.

"Danno?"

Danny looked over his shoulder, swallowing down the last bits of strawberry.

Grace stood in the open sliding glass door, wiping sleep from her eyes with the heels of her hands. She was still in her night shirt and shorts. With a yawn and a stretch she stepped out onto the patio and glanced out at the backyard. The small flowers she had planted last week were dipping down, heavy with sparkling drops of rain. The neighbor's palm fronds funneled water into puddles in the grass and their own tree's leaves flicked droplets off in mild manner. She could even see a few small birds hiding under a bush with quiet chattering. Her lips quirked upwards in a smile.

"I like the rain," Grace said, earning a warm smile from her father.

"Me too, monkey," Danny set his coffee aside and patted his leg. "Have a seat with me."

Danny wrapped his arm around her waist as she settled onto his lap, leaning her head on his shoulder. He smiled gently. It was moments like these that made dealing with murderers and chasing thieves all week worth it. So long as he could have his daughter with him he would be happy.

"Did you have anything specific you wanted to do today?" Danny asked.

Grace hummed thoughtfully, pressing her clasped fists to her lips. "Well, it's really rainy so no beach."

"Definitely no beach," he agreed quickly. If it had been sunny and a hundred degrees he still wouldn't have wanted to go to the beach. Sand was such a pain to wash out of everywhere, whether it be the car or his swim shorts. A roll of thunder overhead struck out several other things that he didn't want to do in the first place. "And no hiking, fishing, or jogging. Or anything that involves being outside for the matter."

"We could go to the movies," Grace suggested.

"What's out?" he asked, mentally running through a list of the movies that had recently come out. Most of the movies he wanted to see weren't going to come out until later in the year.

"_Iron Man 3_ is out," she said. "One of my friends went and saw it and said it was good. Plus, Iron Man is cute."

"Cute? _Cute?_ Who are you and what've you done with my innocent baby girl?" he questioned, part in mock fear and part real fear. Mostly real fear.

Grace gave him a bright grin. "I like superheroes. The entire Five-0 team is like the Avengers team."

"Really? Well then let me ask you this, monkey, which Avenger do you think I am?" Danny asked, holding back a chuckle that he had raised his girl right. She could do football and superheroes in pigtails and a cheerleader's uniform. Score one for Danny, zip for Rachel and Step Stan.

She pressed her lips into a firm line and braced her chin on her fist as she contemplated that question. "I don't know. Can we come back to you?"

"Sure. What about Chin?"

"Hawkeye, because he's quiet and smart and has good aim," she answered easily.

"I second that. What about Kono?"

"Come on, Danno. Definitely Black Widow because she's pretty and can kick some serious butt."

"You should tell her that sometime, monkey. I'm sure she'd love to hear you say that. Okay, here's the kicker. What about Steve?"

Grace stared off into the backyard, deep within her mind. "Captain America. He was in the military, he's smart and loyal, and he's strong."

"Okay," Danny smirked. He could see that. "Now the big question. Which Avenger is your father?"

"Iron Man," she said simply.

"Iron Man? He's reckless and arrogant and narcissistic," he objected.

"But he's loud, smart, handsome, and friends with Captain America, just like you," she summed up with a smile.

"Nice save, monkey. Well, maybe we can go see it tonight," he nodded. They could grab something to eat, go settle down in a dark theater, and just enjoy the weekend. Of course, enjoying the weekend is too easy. Some force in the universe must have a constant grudge against him, because his phone started to ring. His friend's smug smirk appeared on the screen. Great. He held it up to his ear, saying, "Steve, don't do this to me."

Grace rolled her eyes and gave a short exhale. She knew that her dad would do anything to stay at home with her, but he was committed to his job. And she loved him for it. Sure, it got kind of annoying when they made plans to go do something and then her uncle would call in and ask for Danny's help to go chase some 'dumb schmucks' is how her father put it. But he always told her he did his job to keep the island safe for her.

Only problem was, she couldn't go back to her mom's house this weekend. She had taken the baby to go see Step Stan in Las Vegas for a few days. Danny relayed as much to his partner.

"I have Grace this weekend and Rachel's out of town. What am I supposed to do? Babysitter? No, I will not leave my child with some high school student looking to make a quick buck," Danny glared at the phone, and Grace knew that Uncle Steve would easily feel the heat from it on the other end. His eyes softened and he glanced at her. "Catherine? Would she do that for me? Yeah, I'll be there in half an hour."

"Work?" Grace raised a brow.

"Where'd you pick that face up from? Your mom or Steve?" Danny snorted with a laugh. He tossed his phone back onto the table and pinched the bridge of his nose before letting his arm rest on the chair. "Would it be okay with you if you hung out with Catherine for the day while Steve and I chase down some dumb schmucks?"

"I guess," she shrugged, a bit bummed that their plans had gotten dashed so early on.

"Hey, don't you worry, monkey. I'll be back later and we can go see that movie. And if I'm too late tonight, we'll go see it tomorrow, okay?" Danny lifted her chin. "Plus, I think Catherine mentioned something about going to Itz."

"Itz? No way!" Grace leapt up. "I'm going to go get dressed."

Danny made a face as she raced away. Catherine was no doubt an awesome aunt, but he was extremely put out that he wasn't the one taking her to Itz or the movies. Just one of the perks of being a cog in the Governor's personal crime fighting machine. With a groan he stood up and made his way inside to get ready for a day, a Saturday, of work.

Dumb schmucks beware, they interrupted time with his daughter.

* * *

Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett watched the Camaro pull up into the parking lot from the window in his office. His partner darted from the driver's side up to the entrance of the Palace, holding a newspaper over his head in defense against the still drizzling rain. Once he lost visual he vacated his office and wandered towards the smart table where Lieutenant Chin Ho Kelly and Officer Kono Kalakaua stood, examining their most recent findings and organizing their next move.

"You better have a damn good reason for ordering me to work on a Saturday, McGarrett!" Danny's loud voice entered the room far before he did.

"How about a sighting of Clark and Gallagher? That a good enough reason?" Steve asked in an attempt to placate his partner's anger.

Danny stopped short, hands midair ready to start a rant. "You mean we finally got eyes on those two idiots? Please tell me FAA caught them trying to board a plane or Coast Guard rammed their boat."

"Rammed their boat?" Kono asked with a perked brow and a slightly amused tone.

"Those numbskulls shot me! Twice!" Danny tapped himself on the chest in indication of the bruises where his Kevlar vest had stopped the bullets from doing more damage. "Forgive me if I'm a little less than sympathetic with them. So yes, hopefully the Coast Guard rammed their boat and then sharks came in to harass them."

"Sorry, brah, Coast Guard didn't catch them and sharks didn't eat them," Chin shook his head.

"Oh no, no, no. I didn't say I wanted the sharks to eat them, just harass them. There's a big difference. One leaves them making a mess in their pants and terrified while the other leaves them dead. I want them terrified long before we get ahold of them, to soften them up, you know?" Danny waved a hand around. "Besides, if all the goods they stole weren't on the boat that sunk, dead men tell no tales."

"Well, at least we don't have to worry about that," Steve tapped a picture on the smart table, tossing it up to one of the hanging screens. "Our data sifter that Chin put out found a facial match to Clark on a photo sharing website. This picture was taken at 0500 hours this morning by a trawler coming back into port."

"They _are_ on a boat," Danny leaned against the table. He zoomed in on the boat and glared at the sunglass covered face of Jerome Clark. That was the bastard that had shot him, twice, on their first encounter. "Gallagher must be below deck. Do we know where they're headed?"

"Fong cleaned up the picture and managed to get partial coordinates from the boat's control display," Kono gestured to the pixelated version in front of them. She typed a command onto the table and brought forth a map that showed the part of the ocean northwest of the island chain of Hawaii. Using her finger as a marker she drew a red circle in a small section of the map. "Those coordinates would wind up ending somewhere close to this general area."

"Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades," Steve muttered as he leaned down to examine the map closer. He rubbed the back of his neck and then straightened, crossing his arms over his chest and saying something under his breath.

"Sorry, what was that?" Danny cupped a hand around his ear, not exactly liking what he thought he heard.

"There're islands out there that aren't named or inhabited, but are all part of the Hawaiian Island Chain," Steve said slowly. "Maybe we should take a helicopter out there and see if there's an island that Clark and Gallagher are hiding on until things cool down."

"Your plan is to what? Just borrow a helicopter and go cruising around looking for an island?" Danny questioned. He gestured to the Navy man with a flick of his wrist. "You do hear yourself right?"

"SWAT has a chopper that can go on long hauls. We take a couple of SWAT officers out-"

"We? What do you mean we? You want me to get on a chopper with you and go out into the middle of the ocean? Do you know how many things on that list inspires fear in me?" Danny tossed a hand up in a halting motion.

Steve threw his hands up in the air. "Come on, Danny! If we find them, don't you want to be there to bring them in?"

"Do I want to risk getting shot again in order to throw their asses in prison? Not really," Danny shook his head and then grinned. "But I really want to a chance to shoot him."

"Revenge is a dish best served cold?" Kono asked with a raised brow.

"Do not take after me, young padawan, I have been around the Dark Force too long," Danny jerked a thumb at his partner who made a hurt face. "Cops don't seek revenge. They seek justice."

"And if they happen to coincide with each other, then that's just a fortunate blessing," Chin concluded, flashing a wise smile at them.

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**Thanks for reading guys!**


	10. Lilo I Ko'u Pono'i Mana'o (Lost Mind)

**What's this one about?**

**I was frigging pumped about this fic. This is the first chapter, which I'm pretty sure I sent to Phoebe years ago and first introduced her to my brand of crazy. Maybe one day I'll finish this one. I'm actually half way through the stupid thing. Should just get it done...**

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**"Lilo I Ko'u Pono'i Mana'o (Lost in My Own Mind)"**

Danny jolted back into the land of the living and drew a much needed breath into his lungs. Blinding blue sky filled his vision as he squinted his eyes open. That ever cloudless blue sky and liquid sunshine that was Hawaii with all its warmth and sticky humidity. Man, why was it so bright? Why were there never any clouds when he needed them? It was always a cloudless sky. Well, not ever cloudless if he thought about it. There always seemed to be clouds hanging over the mountains in the north. Ha, if you could call those ridges mountains. Now the Catskills, those were mountains.

He blinked against the insanely bright blue, trying to funnel his thoughts into proper order instead of the hither-tither thing going on right now. His angle of vision meant that he was still laying on his back where he hazily remembered falling. Gravel bit into his shoulders as he shifted, creating several pinprick pains against him. The fact he was on gravel confirmed that he was most likely still in the empty lot. Where the empty lot was and why he was there, he had no clue. He craned his head to the side and winced at his stiff neck. How long had he been laying there?

At least the Camaro was still present and accounted for.

His brows furrowed. Why wouldn't it be present and accounted for? What had happened exactly?

Whatever had happened left him with a throbbing head that made itself known as he sat up slowly, taking stock of his body as he did so. His forearm kind of hurt, but as he brushed bits of gravel and dirt off of it nothing popped out as abnormal underneath his fingers. Ribs felt like he had been in a fight, but that could be attributed to the fall. His knee definitely felt like it was going to start giving him problems, as if he maybe twisted it when he fell.

The fall which he didn't remember happening. Yet.

Danny slowly got to his feet, making sure everything was still functioning along the way as he went. No nausea meant no concussion, a good thing even if his head still hurt like he'd been whacked. Or from where it had whacked the ground. He tenderly ran his fingertips along his scalp, feeling for cuts and abrasions. The ground was unforgiving and had cruelly hurt many people during an otherwise nonviolent fall. At least it wasn't concrete. He would know if his head had been bounced off of concrete. But why couldn't it have been grass? Or even sand? Or not at all? Stupid ground.

He shifted his semi-warranted glare from said ground back to his car, trying to herd his thoughts together. Maybe he had been mugged. In broad daylight. Outside of the city. Yeah.

He dug into his pants pocket. His phone was still there in his pocket as was his wallet. The keys to his shiny muscle car jingled as he felt around. If all of that was still present he probably wasn't mugged, on the bright side. On the flip side, he still wasn't sure why he had been unconscious. He pulled his keys out and fingered the ridges along the Camaro's key. His gun and badge were clipped on his hip, so that meant he was on duty. If he was on duty then his partner should be somewhere close by.

No. That was something he _did_ remember. He needed to call his partner. Or maybe he needed to head towards Five-0 Headquarters. It was all very jumbled up in his mind, like a box of Legos that just wouldn't quite snap together to create what he wanted or needed to see.

Danny opened the car door and peered around into the back to make sure he had no tag along riders. Seeing it was clear he slid into the driver's seat, taking note that it was correctly adjusted so that meant that he had been driving it, not Steve, which confirmed that he was probably supposed to be heading towards HQ. In turn that made him wonder again why he was at the empty lot to begin with.

"Probably shouldn't even be driving," Danny muttered to himself as he pulled his phone from his pocket. He massaged his temple with one hand while navigating to his recent calls list with the other. Yep, he had called his partner last. That left him with a dilemma now. "Do I pull a Super SEAL and drive to the Palace with the possibility of a concussion and the fact that I have no recent memories? Of course, if Steve drove with a head injury I would chew him out for it because he's a Neanderthal. Then again, if his head was bounced against the ground, the ground would probably crack. Stupid hard headed animal."

Danny worried his bottom lip. His thoughts seemed to be flowing more like a web of spilled ink rather than a cohesive stream easily understood. The ache in his head honestly wasn't that bad, and he'd had concussions before so he would know, so he hesitantly slid the key into the ignition and turned the engine over.

_I went skydiving,_

_I went Rocky Mountain climbing,_

_I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Blue Manchu,_

_And I loved deeper,_

_And I spoke sweeter,_

_And I gave forgiveness I'd been denying_

He didn't remember leaving the radio on, though.

And that's where it got strange. Stranger. He didn't listen to the country music station, always being more of a Bon Jovi and 80s kind of guy. He knew Steve was more of a random genre and surprisingly Blues kind of guy. Neither of them were into country all that much.

Why was it playing in the Camaro?

Danny punched the volume knob and shut down one of the few country artists he knew. He didn't need more voices in his head than his at the moment while the Legos tried to snap together.

The Camaro eased backwards to where he had a straight shot out of the lot. He tossed it into drive and gained speed on the dirt road that led away from the vacant place. Of course, it didn't gain nearly as much speed as it did when Steve drove it down a dirt road. Danny knew that the Navy SEAL had to know that traction was severely decreased on gravel and that of all cars, the Camaro was _not_ a rally car. He could just picture that classic McGarrett smirk as Steve would adamantly tell him that yes, his car was indeed built for this kind of pursuit.

He made a face at the thought of his partner. There was some niggling thought in the back of his mind going off like a warning bell. But that warning bell was heavily stuffed with cotton and nearly muted. He still felt like he should really call him.

"I don't think we're going the right direction."

Danny startled hard at the unrecognizable yet somehow familiar voice coming from the passenger seat. While he thought about telling the unknown voice that there was only one direction to go, the rational part of his mind went on the defense. One hand went to his gun as he turned to look to his right.

His jaw dropped.

A long, slender form sat awkwardly in the passenger seat with its back feet resting on the dashboard while its face was hidden by a map that was folded out in front of it. It was green. It had _scales_.

It bent a corner of the map down and looked at him. "What?"

Danny slammed on the brakes. His seatbelt snapped taut across his chest. The force of the sudden stop sent the green scaly noodle snake thing through the windshield. Glass shattered and dust spewed up from the tires.

For a few brief moments it was quiet while the dust settled.

"What the hell?" Danny panted. He ran his hands down his face and carded his fingers through his hair. "I shouldn't be driving. I shouldn't be…that's what I get for pretending to be Steve. I need to call him to come get me, or Chin, before…I mean, what the actual hell was that?"

He peeled his hands away from scrubbing them over his face. The windshield was still busted, which meant he _had_ hit _something_ or very possibly sent _something_ through it. His gut twisted. He hoped he didn't actually kill something that his addled brain couldn't identify at the moment.

A good fifteen feet in front of the car the slender green noodle creature sat up and held up its front feet in a questioning gesture. Something about that posturing gave him the impression it was asking something along the lines of 'What was that for?'

"Oh my god," Danny pressed his forehead against the steering wheel, huffing out a manic laugh. "I've lost my mind. That's it! It's gone!"

"I thought you _didn't_ drive like Steve?" the noodle, why was he stuck on that descriptor, creature shouted as it started to walk back towards the car.

"You're not real, you're not real, I've lost my mind, I've gone insane, I've finally snapped," Danny half-muttered and half-laughed several times as he heard crunching footsteps come closer.

Slowly he turned his head and flinched away violently as there was suddenly a reptilian face with huge yellow-orange eyes staring in his window. The face was green and scaly like the rest of the noodle creature, with two small white horns on either side of its jaw and a crest of porcupine like quills down its neck.

"I don't think you've lost your mind yet," it said in a voice that somehow called to mind the Cheshire Cat and Bugs Bunny with its underlying amused tones.

"I'm seeing, and now talking, to a whatever-the-hell-you-are and I can't remember what I was doing! I have the right to call it and say I've lost my mind," Danny snapped at the noodle.

"You haven't lost your mind. That's a much longer process," it, definitely a he, said. He pointed to the windshield.

Danny's eyes widened when he followed the clawed hand to see that the glass had fixed itself and his windshield was as it should be. Clear and spotless with no cracks, no sign he had sent the noodle flying through it not but two minutes ago.

"You're lost _in_ your mind," the noodle clarified.

He turned to face the creature, thoughts whirling like a tornado had swept them all up in its irrefutable winds and started to shot put them out at random. Semi-trucks of reason and doubt were hurled forth at him while confusion fluttered down like a box of papers. It felt like the stinging rain of questions was tapping him in the side of the head.

He willed his tongue to work inside his suddenly dry mouth. "What do you mean, lost _in_ my mind?"

"Well, _we're_ lost in your mind," the noodle gestured to the both of them. "You don't remember? You remember."

Danny shook his head as anger and pure panic heated up his face. He didn't care for people that kept giving his noncommittal answers, whether or not they were noodles or humans.

The noodle heaved a sigh. "You're unconscious, genius. High on hallucinogens and zonked on tranquilizers. Remember now?"

His heart thumped unsteadily in his throat as the first clear thoughts dripped into his mind. Oh god, he did remember.

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**Thanks for reading guys!**


	11. Ka Mea Ho'okani Pila (The Musician)

**What's this one about?**

**From early 2016, I think? First chapter of a fic verging on the edge of sci-fi. It may not seem like it from the first chapter, but it was going to deal with advanced weaponry and psychological issues. Honestly, I'm not exactly sure where I was going with it. It was going to be weird and wild for sure.**

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**"Ka Mea Ho'okani Pila (The Musician)"**

"_Without music life would be a mistake."_

_-Friedrich Nietzsche_

Calm permeated the offices of Five-0. It was like the tranquil warmth of a ray of sun that warmed you down to even your bones. Calm. That was something that was in short supply these days, though the amount of golden sun was never anything short of abundant here on this small rock that was part of the Hawaiian Islands. If anything, it overflowed in its pureness and strength.

Detective Danny Williams wished there was an exchange somewhere where you could trade in the sunshine for calm days like this one. He could be a happy man then. A job as exciting as his left one on edge and their nerves utterly fried on most days. On a good day you could go home knowing that you had successfully managed to protect this rock from yet another crazy's plans of mass destruction. On a bad day you went home and stayed wide awake the rest of the night with a bottle of your choice of poison as your only friend.

Thankfully on most bad days one Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett knew how to keep his team from drowning their sorrows in Jack Daniels or Grey Goose. A barbeque at his house would banish their failures for the evening, lost to the gentle laughs and companionable silence while they sat on his lanai with a beer and watched the sun set fire to the horizon with reds and golds and oranges that no artist could ever recreate. That was a calm time.

So when it was so calm in the office in the middle of a work week, Danny had to wonder what was going on. Not that he didn't appreciate the tranquil clicking of Lieutenant Chin Ho Kelly finishing reports or the muffled snickers of Officer Kono Kalakaua and Steve watching some cheesy horror movie from the dark ages of the silver screen with their feet propped up on the edge of the smart table. No, he relished these rare moments.

But it made him wonder.

He wondered why it was so calm. The universe didn't like them that much. Forces in the universe conspired against them on a daily basis it seemed. Something was bound to stir the pot, to set the fox loose among the hens sooner or later. Laws set forth on the day that Danny was forcefully made a Navy SEAL's partner in crime fighting decreed that calm was not on the menu for them.

Perhaps today, though, the laws would give it a rest and let him actually get off work at a decent time not carrying any nightmare fuel home with him. Maybe he could actually help Grace with her homework tonight or catch the game he had missed or even just enjoy a drink with his team without all of them having barely concealed anger that a case had fallen apart.

Of course, asking the universe for one small favor would make it think he was being selfish. The universe had tricky and strange ways of stirring the pot. Sometimes it was drugs in the back of a stolen Porsche that had a government official dismembered in it, sometimes it was an alert that mines had been planted on a stretch of a popular tourist shoreline. Whatever it may be, Danny had seen the worst and the weirdest and the most surprising that it had to throw at them.

It had never done this before. It had never been so abrupt, though the universe would probably never have it any other way. Granted, it had warned them that it was shooing the calm away with a couple of gunshots that first weakened the glass pane and sent them into an almost automatic state of defense.

"Everybody down!" Steve yelled.

Not that Danny needed to be told what to do when bullets were entering their workspace.

Steve and Kono both ducked behind the edges of the inner rooms, flinching as a stray bullet shattered an interior window in Steve's office. Danny could feel Chin reassuringly behind him as they watched with dismay as a few bullets clipped the monitors above the smart table. Luckily they missed the actual table, but nothing made the tech wizard of the group tenser than something causing harm to his devices.

"Where's it coming from?" Chin yelled across the open space between their place of cover and the other two's.

Without warning the window that was being peppered with shots broke into shards as a body came flying through it. Instinctively they shielded their faces with their forearms, but broke form just as quickly as the person tumbled across the slick floor and the shots continued.

Danny bolted forward in a low crouch with Steve providing cover fire. The person started to scramble upright as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her away from the path of destruction. Seeming to realize what he was doing she stopped resisting and instead clung to him like a frightened child. He managed to get them both back over to where Chin was sheltered, his arm pushing her behind him so at least he had some range of motion.

Though it seemed it was for naught. No one was returning fire now. It was quiet again. But it was far from calm.

"What the hell was that about?" Kono questioned as she warily stood up, still clutching her gun.

"I don't know," Steve said while he slunk along the wall closer to the window. He chanced a glance out of the fragments of glass to the treetops that were clustered around them. With a visible exhale his shoulders dropped and he turned his attention to the fifth person that was still cowering behind Danny. "But how did _she_ manage to come through the window?"

"Two stories up," Chin cast a curious look at her as well.

Danny felt her tuck her chin and hide her face against the back of his shoulder, her arms wrapping tighter around his chest. Slowly he holstered his weapon and stood up with cautious movements. The woman moved with him, shivering as he took her by the crook of her elbow and brought her around front where she hugged him just as tightly, face still hidden against his neck.

"Hey, hey, you're okay now. You're safe, babe. You're safe. What's your name?" Danny asked soothingly, giving his teammates' a helpless look. He didn't know if he could pry her off him if he tried. She was like a starfish stuck to a rock. A silent starfish. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Ah, she could do something other than cling. She shook her head subtly. Danny held up his hand and showed the blood on it to Steve while keeping his other hand firmly but gently pressed against her back.

"Kono, call for an ambulance. Chin, me and you are gonna go see if the shooter is still around. Danny, stay with her," Steve directed, always the cool one under pressure.

Danny made a face that relayed if he wanted to go somewhere the woman would probably still be stuck to him. Steve shrugged, not knowing how to reply to that. Safeties off and not in a very good mood, Chin and he dashed from the offices. Kono talked on her phone with the same heightened adrenaline rush that Danny was feeling but kept under reign a little better than the rookie cop.

The woman sagged against him, groaning slightly.

"Woah, okay. Just take it easy. I've got you," Danny bit back a grunt as he got to his knees again, letting the woman take the weight off her legs and just lean on him. From her slackened position he could see the massive splotch of black and blue topped with a barely healed cut above her left eye. Maybe the unwillingness to answer was caused by a concussion.

"The EMTs are on their way," Kono said, crouching down across from him. "Is she okay?"

"I don't know. I can see lots of cuts and bruises, but I'm not a medical professional. I definitely don't think she's okay because who besides Super SEAL would just get up and brush off crashing through a second story window after getting shot at?" Danny's brows raised though his hands stayed stationary supporting the woman.

The woman with the bass clef tattoo.

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**Thanks for reading guys!**


	12. Zootopia AU

**What's this one about?**

**This was me tinkering around with writing an AU in which Five-0 existed in the Zootopia universe. If you've never seen it, it's a lovely Disney movie where the entire world is populated by anthropomorphic animals. It deals with racism in a realistic way and is one of my favorite movies.**

**Basically, this is just a scene from a larger part of a series that never got off the ground. Go figure. Nighthowlers make animals go rabid. Steve is a tigon, Danny a dhole (a type of canine), Kono an Oryx, and Chin a river otter.**

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**Wild**

(In which Five-0 are in the _Zootopia_-verse)

Steve felt his gut twist when he heard the sticky wet _splat_ of a Nighthowler Popper, but not for the reason he thought he would have felt sick.

They had developed a protocol when this particular weapon became popular again with a specific drug ring after the incidents in Zootopia. Since they seemed to be targeting predators and since three-fourths of Five-0 were predators he had equipped each of his team with high dose tranqs, giving Kono free range of all of their weaponry since she was the only not likely to be targeted.

Being a Tigon, he was obviously the largest threat. He told his team not to hold back if he went wild and started attacking them. He'd rather take a bullet to the shoulder than live with the fact that he had maimed one of his teammates.

He was so sure that he was going to be the target that it caught him off guard when his partner was hit with the Popper.

"Danny!" he yelled, turning on his heel and crouching low amongst the foliage.

With superior night vision he could see the blue stain on the side of the Dhole's neck. His ears twitched at the growling coming from him. Danny growled a lot, but it was always a complaining growl about how Steve was a throwback to the Ice Age, not a predatory growl. Not this hyper-aggressive growl.

"Ah, Danno," he hissed to himself. This was not going to be good.

Danny dropped to all fours with a snarl. His nose swept through the air, taking a moment to locate him. Steve had dove off the path into the thick undergrowth upon the first sound of a sniper rifle discharging. There he was still hidden. He was hiding from his own partner. The day couldn't get any worse.

His partner charged the underbrush with a yowl.

Steve cursed and darted out of the way. They would spar sometimes against each other to try and keep their skills sharp. Of course, they never went full steam during those sessions. The Nighthowler removed any hesitations about doing that. Danny's teeth chomped onto his tail.

Howling, Steve turned and swatted at him. Just a firm shove. Enough to knock him off. He reached for the tranq gun holstered to his belt. Danny launched at him again with his claws outstretched.

"Danny, listen to me, bud, this isn't you," Steve jumped away again. He knew that talking didn't get through to them. They were running on drugged primal instincts.

Danny, for his part, was a lot better fighter than Steve had ever given him credit for. He was a trained SEAL and was still having a hard time evading every attack that the Dhole initiated. Every step or lunge back was evenly matched and his partner was fueled with an unnatural surge of adrenaline.

Steve also was suffering with reservations about hurting him. He could take down mammals twice his size with efficiency, but it left a lot of damage in the wake. Taking down the smallest of his team wouldn't have been that difficult if he was using lethal measures. But he wouldn't. He couldn't.

Danny bounced off a tree trunk, shoving against it with his hind paws. He wrapped his fingers around his arm and sunk his teeth into his wrist and shook his head. Steve reared back, lifting him off the ground and losing his gun in the process. He rolled onto his back and kicked at him, finally managing to dislodge him.

"Remind me to take your threats to bite me more seriously," he muttered, glancing at the bloody marks on his arm.

Danny was already moving again. Steve readied himself, having to have a precise amount of power behind his next swing. As the Dhole jumped for his neck he brought his paw up and used his palm to make contact with his chest. The blow sent him reeling into the foliage.

He was afraid that he had broken some ribs when Danny reappeared, moving slower but still avid about attacking him. With a frown Steve got on all fours and waited for him to make the next move.

He charged headlong again, but this time Steve had a better idea of how to handle him. Leaning back at the last second and letting his partner get a good shot at his neck, he reached around and secured a fistful of fur on his scruff. Forcefully he yanked him to the ground and pressed his knee on his back.

"Danny, you need to calm down," he ordered. He pressed his paw on his partner's head, keeping it firmly against the ground. With a sigh he called in, "Kono, Danny's been hit. I need tranqs at my location and a recovery tank set up."

"_On it, Boss. You got his location?"_

"I'm currently sitting on him," Steve said.

Danny thrashed and growled, but even with all his anger and hopped up instincts he couldn't throw the weight of a full grown tigon off of his back. So Steve sat there and waited for the rest of his team. Waited and worried.

"Just hang in there, Danno. Just hang in there."

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**Thanks for reading guys!**


	13. S6 Extended End Scene

**What's this one about?**

**Like most people, I was pissed at the last scene of the S6 finale. It was so good up until that scene. Completely disregarding Danny and all he'd done was a crap move. Glad S7 was a bit better than S6.**

**Also, anyone who reads "Dragons" will recognize Mags. This, while not her conception, was one of the first writings she appeared in. A few others are probably recognizable, too.**

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**S6 Extended End Scene**

Mags pressed her fingertips against the door and peered around the corner. Immediately she spotted her old partner fast asleep on the bed closest to the door, hair in its usual disarray it got to when he slept. She slipped in with her lanky friend following her and both silently sidled up to the bedside. Not wanting to really wake him up at the moment she bailed and decided to sit in the chair against the wall opposite from the foot of the bed.

With extremely purposeful quietness she slid her backpack off her shoulder and set it between her feet as she sat down. October remained standing, opting to look at the chart hanging at the foot of the bed like the good nurse he was. Old habits die hard. Though, they weren't really old habits, just habits she guessed. As those thoughts rolled through her mind her eyes wandered around the dual room.

And then the sharp contrast was realized.

Confusion was the first thing to hit her. It was like someone had drawn a line down the middle of the room between the two beds and said, 'No balloons or flowers on _this_ side, only _that_ side.' Odd.

Then shock came next. What the hell, man? Why did Steve, not that she didn't like him, no she actually respected him and liked him because Danny did, but why did he have all the goodies? She couldn't count all the flower arrangements, all the colorful 'Get Well' balloons, all the cards, and all the fruit for Pete's sake on all her fingers and toes. Even if she had all her toes. Where was Danny's portion? His side of the room was barren except for some drawings and handmade cards that were obviously from Charlie and Grace. A small vase with some flowers that looked like they'd been picked from a garden sat next to the miniscule stack of cards on his night stand. At least his kids had done something for him.

The shock roiled into a new emotion. Total and utter pissed off. Heat radiated through Mags' chest, anger mixing with the shock of what this atrocity was. Words couldn't even begin to describe what was going on, or what she was going to say and do when she got a hold of the others, God forbid they actually show up while she was here. If they thought a Jersey rant was bad, she'd show them Texan rant. It involved short, curt words and a slug to the jaw.

"Well, that sucks some serious monkey butt," October commented under his breath. Apparently he'd noticed the same thing.

"Not what I would've said, but close enough," Mags said.

Danny stirred on the bed. Their talking, though brief and hushed, must've been enough to wake him up. Mags stood up and brought her backpack over with her, setting it between her feet again as she stood off to the side. Her ex-partner's eyes flickered open into slits and searched around the room for a few moments before catching her face. His lips quirked up and he shut his eyes again.

Three seconds later they bolted fully open.

"Mags? The hell are you doing here?" Danny questioned.

"Well, I could just go back to New York if you're that happy to see me," Mags said. Her grin broadened as he shook his head subtly.

Danny pressed the elevation button on the control pad to his bed and levered the mattress up into a more upright position. He cast his eyes up and his brows shot up again. "Beanpole? You brought him along, too?"

"What? I'm not allowed to be concerned when a dear friend of my friend almost dies?" October put a hand to his chest and widened his eyes.

"No. Hawaii's just a long way to fly to see how I'm doing when a phone call would've worked just as well. Aren't you on any cases, and don't you have ER duty Gremlin?" Danny asked, flicking a wrist at both of them.

"I have vacation time," October shrugged his narrow shoulders.

"And I come bearing gifts," Mags hefted her backpack up onto the side of the bed and sat on the edge. She pulled the zippers down either side, continuing, "I became the mule when everyone heard I was coming out here. Plane rides are faster than the mail service it seems."

Danny smirked quickly. It felt nice to have some love directed his way, even if he had only been around October twice in the past two years. A familiar sting of bitterness and sadness poked him in the cracked ribs at his lack of company the past week. It had been lonely, and his current partner had been an ass. Also, he wondered where the rest of his 'ohana' had been. He'd seen them when they'd come in to visit Steve and they'd stopped by briefly to say 'hi' and see how he was doing.

Except for that one time four days ago when Chin and Kono stealthily managed to slip a few French fries by the nurses for him. Only a few, though, because he didn't need to make himself sick with the remaining half of his liver. That was nice. Still no cards or flowers, though.

"Okay, here we go into the vortex of cards," Mags pulled out one stack held together by a rubber band and read the name on the top envelope. "This stack is from your family. I've got a card from your mom and dad, one from each sister, and a few from your sisters' kids. There's also cards from some aunts and uncles and cousins that crawled out of the woodwork when they heard I was flying to Honolulu. These are also from your mom."

Mags held up a big zip-lock bag with something wrapped up in tinfoil inside of it. It had his mother's signature and a heart on it.

"I do believe these are her famous brownies," Mags set them on the nightstand next to the tiny bouquet of garden flowers. "Airport security was going to seize them, but somehow October convinced them not to."

October held up two thumbs. He was good with that kind of stuff.

Danny watched with bright eyes as she pulled another stack of cards out of the backpack, this one slightly smaller than the stack from his family. "This stack has a card from Chief Callahan, a few other detectives at the old precinct, Beulah from evidence lockup also sends her love. She had, and still has, such a crush on you, it's scary."

Danny chuckled. He remembered big, bold, bodacious Beulah from evidence lockup. A very smooth skinned, frizzy haired, curvaceous woman with a massive crush on him. She was sweet and kind, but would put him in his place. He liked her, but not like she liked him.

"These are from the ER Gremlins," Mags held up another stack of cards rubber banded together. "Calypso also sent you a few wedding photos since you couldn't be there. Kane's twins also made cards for you, because Lord knows you have a way with kids and they fell in love with you while they were here last year. They wanted to send flowers, too, but Kane managed to get it through to them that they would wilt before they got here. So they sent these instead."

She tugged on a string and pulled up a bunch of flowers cut and glued from construction paper. They were all about size of his palm and were all strung together so he could hang them somewhere. He smiled softly as Mags laid them in his hands. Brooke and Skye were cute little girls. Crafty, too.

"And this stack is from the criminal element," Mags held up another thin stack. She peeled the rubber band off and started to read where each card was from. "This one is from Alex."

"How's she doing?" Danny asked as he took the pink envelop and read the names that had been painstakingly written in neat cursive. 'To: Danny From: Alexandria'.

"Good, good. Glad you set her straight. She enjoys working in the flower shop much more than being a prostitute. I helped her scrounge some dough together and she arranged a bouquet to get shipped here. I'm guessing it'll arrive later today," Mags held her hands palm up as if weighing her guessing abilities. She turned back to the cards, and gave an odd evil little laugh. "Guess who this one's from."

Danny furrowed his brows as she flipped the envelope around so he could see the front. He looked back at her with a perked brow. He knew that big black 'X'. "Seriously? Even X-Files sent a card? I thought he didn't like me because I wasn't on 'his level'?"

"He actually told me, because I said the same thing, that he liked how you challenged him on everything. He thought it was fun to argue with you, and we all know how you like to argue," Mags grinned. She handed the card off to him. "He also sent a sketch, but it's back at the hotel because I didn't want to damage it."

"It wouldn't fit in your backpack?"

"Too big," Mags shook her head. Behind her October mimed the size of the thing, probably a good two feet tall and a foot wide. She slid a blue envelope with a metallic stamp on it out of the stack and flipped it around to face him. "Beretta and Gunner also send their love. They also sent fifty dollars for you to _specifically_ spend on alcohol. Gunner says do something crazy with tequila, but Beretta says have a couple of beers on her."

"Of course Gunner wants me to do tequila shots. Every time we there, Mags, _every_ _time_ he tried to convince me to do shots or whatever the hell that fluorescent pyramid their club specializes in is, the dumb schmuck. I don't even want to know what trouble those two morons have gotten into since I've been gone," Danny rubbed his thumb over the club's emblem on the front of the electric blue envelope.

"Gunner wound up in the hospital six months ago after bouncing a couple of guys hopped up on somethin' nasty out of the club," she said. "Beretta didn't leave his side, but hired me to look into it. She didn't feel it was just a random act of chaos."

"I said don't tell me!" he said. He closed his mouth for a moment and then opened it again. "So, did her paranoia actually pay off? Was there actually a person in the shadows watching and waiting to get rid of her and her club?"

"Oh yes. Apparently the paranoid _do_ survive," Mags snorted, looking back down at the stack in her hands. She held up another card in a burnt orange envelope. "This one's from Achutebe, because he's still so grateful you saved his life and he's all about honoring you and all that fun stuff."

"Damn, I don't get how his handwriting's so neat and perfect," Danny said. Achutebe was a huge beast of a man of Nigerian descent that looked like his hands were made for tearing through walls rather than writing excellent calligraphy.

"You and me both. Mine looks like chicken scratch next to his," Mags grumbled. She pulled out a small wooden box. "He also sent some of his herbal tea that 'soothes the troubled soul and calms the nerves of men with many anxieties and child support payments', or so he says."

Danny crinkled up his nose. He wasn't a big tea drinker, preferring coffee and only drinking hot tea when he was sick. But he would try it if only because he was afraid the big man would find out he hadn't done so.

Mags held up one last envelope. It was a nice dark green with a four leaf clover drawn in the center of it. She waggled her eyebrows. "Remember Shamrock?"

"You're kidding," Danny took the card and sniffed it. It had a sweet, light scent like the woman who sent it always did.

"She has a soft spot for you. She also sent something else, but I didn't want to bring it because I was afraid the hospital would confiscate it," Mags dug her phone out of her back pocket and slid her thumb across the screen. It was only a few moments before she turned the phone around and displayed a picture of what else the eccentric woman had sent.

It was a bottle of whiskey. A big bottle of whiskey. A very expensive looking big bottle of whiskey.

"You know how she is. I guess if you don't want it you could sell it and pay rent for the rest of the year," Mags nodded approvingly.

"Or two years," October whispered.

"She also said she's sending something else, but I've got no clue what that is. So just pray it's something you can use and not a peacock or something like that," Mags added.

Danny raked his hand through his hair. He wasn't sure if he felt happy or confused, or both. Was it bad that criminal contacts from New Jersey were sending cards and gifts when his own friends here in Hawaii hadn't even wished him a speedy recovery?

Mags seemed to pick up on his train of thought. Even though they hadn't been partners for years, they were still adept at reading each other. "Danny boy, don't worry about it. I've got it covered."

"Mags, don't do it," Danny warned because he _knew_ what was going to happen.

"Damnit, Danny, I'm gonna to figure out what the hell's going on and I'm gonna knock some sense into them," she leaned down closer and pointed two fingers at the other side of the room. "Because this? This ain't right."

"Mags, this isn't your problem! It's nothing to worry about. I can handle myself, I'm a big boy. And if there's a short quip on your tongue it better die there," Danny raised his voice a little before dropping it again, remembering his partner was still sleeping.

"It became my problem when it happened to you."

With that Mags stood up and hastily exited to room. October stood there, arms crossed and staring after her. His amber gaze shifted from the door down to him. "You know, she's got a point. I've never seen something like this the whole time I've been a nurse. And respectfully, I'm not going to stop her."

October inhaled deeply and let it out in a sigh before following her out.

A quiet shuffling came from the other side of the curtain. It drew back and a very awake Steve glanced around. His eyes locked onto his partner. "So, Mags and October are here?"

Danny grimaced slightly. He had a sinking feeling that Steve had heard most of that conversation. "Yep. She was just dropping off some cards from my family."

"And a few other people," Steve said. "I didn't know you had so many criminal contacts."

"Mags and I had to make some unsavory deals to catch some evil schmucks," he shrugged and held up a hand.

"Yeah, but they must like you enough to send cards and expensive booze," Steve said.

"Shamrock is an interesting person that has too much money," he grinned slightly.

* * *

**Thanks for reading guys!**


	14. Popoki a me 'Ilio (Cats and Dogs)

**What's this one about?**

***hides face* This is...uh...my first attempt at an AU. Ever. From 2015. It's a bit rough. Ridiculous. Not well thought out. But darn it, I had fun writing it. I planned on it being a series like "Dragons", but it just didn't get farther than this. So enjoy!**

* * *

**Popoki a me 'Ilio (Cats and Dogs)**

Hot, humid air flooded into the belly of the C-17 as the cargo door lowered down onto the tarmac. Heat waves already rippled in the early morning sun, creating blurry visions of the palm trees on the outer edges of the airstrip. With a heavy sigh he got to his feet and stretched subtly.

Home. This was home. Born and raised on this island. It had been a long time since he had set foot on this turf. For the past couple of years his feet had always been planted in the sands of Afghanistan, the mangrove swamps of India, and the thickly jungled forests of South Korea. He had been nosing out bombs and chasing terrorists, not eating fruit and riding the waves.

It was a high possibility that he wasn't ready for a calm life. Though grateful he was to be back, he didn't want to face what he was coming back to. He was half-tempted to dig in and stay on the plane.

But at a tug on his collar he followed the sailor on the other end of his leash out into the Hawaiian sun. As they walked away he cast a longing glance at the aircraft over his shoulder. He was going to be bored here, in his forced reserve position.

He didn't handle boredom well.

A truck was waiting in the parking lot for them. Well, him at least. His handler pulled to a halt and he did as well. There were a few words exchanged, pleasantries perhaps. He honestly wasn't really listening despite his penchant for constantly keep an ear trained on his surroundings.

Six months, three weeks, and two days is how long he had been with this handler. He was a good man by the name of James Chandler. A decent handler as far as handlers went, but he was his third handler. The first one was now retired and the second was resting at peace. He had been loyal to the latter two, but they were never going to be his first handler.

His leash was handed to the man standing by the truck. They shook hands and then his handler crouched down to look him in the face. He stood still tolerantly as he scratched behind one ear with a small smile.

"Be good, buddy, okay?" Chandler stood up and walked away.

Another handler down. With a slow exhale out of his nose he turned to the man holding his leash. This guy wouldn't be a handler, so what would he be? An owner? No, he really disliked the idea of someone owning him. He wasn't a pet. A companion? No, he didn't even know the guy beyond his name. Atticus Ford.

"C'mon boy," Atticus opened the passenger side door of the truck.

Easily he jumped up into the seat and sat at attention. The door shut and a few seconds later Atticus was climbing up into the driver's seat. He twisted the keys in the ignition, adjusted the AC, and pulled away from the airstrip. As he eased out onto the main road he glanced across at him, the muzzled mutt that he had just adopted.

"So, Steve, that's some nice ink for a dog."

* * *

Atticus' house was nice enough. It backed up against the ocean, which would be good for early morning swims. Open floor plan, which meant less places for bad guys to hide but less cover if something did happen. Trees shaded the front of the house and the backyard was covered in grass with a small garden in the corner next to the lanai.

Steve stood in place, swiveling his head around in an effort to get acquainted with his new surroundings. He looked up as Atticus kneeled down, the human reaching around his head and expertly undoing the clasps on his muzzle before snapping off his leash.

"There we go," Atticus set the pieces of equipment on the bench by the door and kicked his tennis shoes off. He hung his keys on a hook in the wall, gave his house a once over, and then looked back down at him. "Personally, I never liked muzzles, but I see where they have their uses. Let's just agree to not have to have a need for one in the future, okay?"

Giving a silent thanks, Steve cocked his head to the side in agreement. Atticus sauntered away into the living room. He followed him in a brisk trot, nose to the air. It smelled clean. Not in a sterile way, but fresh. Probably from the big windows across from the couch being open. He could also tell that another person had been in the house. On the way here he had become familiar with Atticus' scent, also clean and a little bit woody. But he could smell something light and flowery. A woman must hang around here sometimes.

He paused as he walked past a display shelf. Lots of pictures in frames fought for space on the four levels. With a small smirk of triumph he picked out a picture that had been taken somewhere out in the jungle with Atticus and a smiling dark haired woman in the center.

Steve shook his head as he turned away from the pictures. He was good at his job. He didn't get why he had been put into the reserves. His nose functioned just fine, his legs could still swim and run, and his teeth worked well. He wasn't broken.

He wasn't broken.

"Okay, so I put a big cushy bed here if you like that, or there's a camo blanket on the couch if you're more of a couch kind of guy," Atticus talking caught his attention. The thin scruffy man gestured to a dog bed that sat between the two windows and then to the blanket draped on the L-shaped couch. "Feel free to relocate them if you don't like where they currently are."

This guy was strange. He was very chill. Very much an islander, Steve realized. He had been gone far too long if he had nearly forgotten what the people were like on his island. At least it was more relaxing than some of the places he had been.

The tension he didn't realize he'd been holding in his shoulders slackened a little at the calm radiating from the human.

"And then there's outside," Atticus edged around the couch and past the kitchen and dining room to the lanai doors. He pushed them open and stepped out onto the deck. Steve once again followed at a brisk trot. A cool sea breeze ruffled the longer fur on the nape of his neck as he stood beside his new human. "I was going to put a dog door in, but I wasn't sure how big you were. So I'll put one in now that I know. I still need to get some dog bowls, but I'll get those from the store later today. And I promise I'm not crazy, even though I'm having a conversation with a dog."

Steve snorted. He stepped down the short set of stairs onto the grass and walked towards the shore. His feet sunk into the sand, paw pads relishing the feel of something natural over manmade flooring. It was different than the desert sand he had been trudging around in a couple months prior. Not as hot and gritty. It was cooler, wetter, softer. As he walked farther out towards the ocean beckoning his name the waves lapped at his paws.

Other houses butted up against the shore in either direction. They were all separated by bushes and trees, but the shoreline connected them like a line on a map. The ribbon of beach stretched straight to the left and wound around to the right. It looked strangely familiar. Where had he seen this shore before?

Suddenly he bolted, ignoring Atticus' surprised call.

Steve slowed his breakneck run as he got closer. He knew that he had recognized that stretch of beach. About a mile down shore was where he had grown up. It had taken him a little longer than he thought it would to get to the house because his muscles were adjusting to running in wet sand over the jungle he had been in before the flight home. He was panting heavily and the first smatterings of rain felt like heaven on his hide.

While he recognized the back of his own house easily, noting the trees in the backyard and the grass were only different in that they were a bit overgrown, his curiosity was on the house that was next to his. Yellow crime scene tape was an instant warning that something had happened. He wondered exactly what. The man that lived there had been a cop and was always friendly with him when he was a pup.

A man he didn't recognize was ducking under the tape. For a moment he paused, debating whether or not he should do something. A big dog barking could definitely scare someone off, or make them shoot you.

Hesitantly Steve continued on his way when he saw that the man was carrying a gun on his hip. Maybe he was a plain clothes detective, though he then wondered why he would sneak in the back way. And the man reminded him more of a sailor, more like the guys that were on his handler's team. Actually, upon a second glance, the man looked kind of familiar. Maybe he had met him before.

Shaking his head Steve trotted on up into the backyard of his childhood home. He knew that the people that had been in the house when he was a pup still lived here, he knew their scent by heart and as he edged around the side of the house to the front he recognized their car.

But it was quieter now at the house. No more dogs. Steve weaved between the car and the flowers down towards the street. He sat on the strip of sidewalk that edged the green grass and stared at the empty pavement.

He'd gotten word while he was away that his father had been hit by a car right in front of the house.

A couple years ago he could remember playing in this very front yard with the old dog and his sister. Then his mother had gotten killed by a drunk driver while she had been on a run with their owners. Everything went downhill from there. Mary Ann was adopted by a woman from the mainland and he was shipped off to train as a MWD. His father had remained in the K-9 Unit in the HPD.

It had been a shock when his handler had gotten a letter from his old owners relaying the information that his father had been killed. It seemed like years ago, but that had happened just under a month ago. Time could really drag when your world started to crumble around you. Had he been acting differently since he had heard? Is that why he was put in the reserves? It seemed like a waste, he could do more good out there than he could here on this island paradise.

And he was already losing his edge. He didn't even hear someone sneak up behind him.

"I can't believe it. Steve?"

Steve stood up abruptly and whipped around. A sleek dark brown cat sat on the lawn behind him. The feline looked familiar, maybe a bit older, but still….

"Chin?"

"Hey, he does remember me," the cat smiled.

"How's it going?" Steve let his hackles fall. He sat down again, feeling more at ease finally seeing a familiar face. "I heard that you started working alongside the K-9 Unit."

Chin's ears laid back and he turned his head to the side. "It's old news, but I've moved onto greener pastures. K-9 and I had a little disagreement about my job description. But enough about me. How are you?"

"Okay," Steve answered with shrugged shoulders.

"I heard about your dad. Sorry, brah. He was my training officer, and he was real good to me after I was let go," Chin leaned forward, knocking his paw lightly against the big dog's leg. "Hope they get it all figured out soon."

Something in the sentence struck Steve as strange. He cocked his head to the side. "What do you mean? Figure it all out?"

"Man, I forgot you that you would've gotten the humans' report on what happened," Chin exhaled heavily and rolled his eyes. His dark eyes settled on the stretch of street where the accident had happened. Supposedly. "K-9 doesn't believe it was a car that killed him."

"What?" he asked lowly, really more of a growl than anything.

"Duke's been spread kind of thin lately, but I heard that a _haole_ detective got put on the case," Chin said. He shook his head. "He's fresh meat from the mainland, he won't be able to get around the other animals on the island very well."

Steve focused on the street for a moment. His chest felt tight and fire curled around his ribs at the dark storm of thoughts that began to swirl around his head. His father hadn't been the victim of an accident. He hadn't been hit by a car.

He had been murdered.

* * *

"Hey, Duke!" Steve barked out as he approached the chain-link fence.

An older German shepherd looked his direction, ears perking as he caught sight of him. Steve halted just on the other side of the fence and waited for the head of the K-9 Unit to reach him. Though he had grayed around the muzzle and didn't move with the same vim and vigor he once had, the old dog looked good since the last time he had seen him.

"Steve! It's been years since I've seen you," Duke laughed, craning his head back a bit. "You've gotten big."

"Duke, I'd like to catch up, but maybe later," Steve said apologetically. "I want to know what's going on with my father's investigation."

Duke shook his head slowly. "Steve, I was so sorry to hear about that. We've had a lot of trouble tracking down anything."

"I heard a _haole_ got put on it," he pulled a lip up in distaste.

"Yeah, a transfer from the east coast," Duke nodded.

"Does he have anything yet?" he questioned.

"Steve, you know I can't share that information with you. It's an ongoing investigation," Duke gave him a look.

"As a friend. Please," he tilted his head to the side, trying his best not to use the puppy face. A trained MWD like himself didn't need to use a puppy face to get what he needed.

"I can't tell you. I'm sorry," Duke sat down, shaking his head slowly.

Steve grumbled, really hating police procedure at the moment. He respected the old dog and his integrity, but he needed to know who had killed his father. And why. That was the big question.

He turned to leave, fully intent on finding out on his own, when another voice hit him.

"Steve, it's good to see you."

"Governor," Steve stood at attention at the golden retriever flanked by a terrier and a Doberman walking towards them.

"I had heard that you were coming in on the C-17 this morning. I am so sorry about your father. He was a good dog," the Governor said sincerely. She looked across at Duke and tilted her head to the side before her eyes shifted back to look at him. "I'm assuming that you're trying to figure out what happened as well, seeing that you're at the K-9 Training Impound rather than mourning."

Steve glanced away for a moment before meeting her eyes again. "I didn't get the word that it had been a homicide until I went to the house this morning."

"I'm sorry about that. It's hard to relay a message properly through the humans without causing problems," the Governor explained, something that Steve already knew very well. "Your father's death shocked all of us, from those in a political position to those in K-9 and the HPD. Have you found anything out yet?"

"No," Steve cast Duke a stern look out of the corner of his eye. "I don't know much, but something about this isn't sitting right with me."

"I agree," she nodded. With a heavy exhale she continued, "Crime has gotten bad on the island. And I don't mean just with the humans, I mean it has gotten bad throughout the animal population, too. Dogs, cats, birds, boars, livestock. There have even been several cases of cross-crimes."

"Humans attacking animals on the streets for no reason, animals attacking humans for no reason," Duke clarified.

"I want to crack down on it, but K-9 is what it is. They work for the humans in HPD and don't have enough bodies or enough time to confront the problem head on," she said. Steve blinked, thinking he saw a glimmer of something in one of her eyes. She puffed her chest out and pulled her shoulders back. "I need a specialized task force that doesn't work for the humans, one that has the resources and the time. They would have blanket immunity from me and whatever they needed to get these beasts the hell off my island."

Steve's eyes narrowed at her. "And?"

"And I think a Navy Military Working Dog stuck in the reserves with idle paws would be the perfect head of it," she deadpanned. "Steve, how bad do you want the monsters that did this to your father?"

At first, he wanted to say no. No, he didn't want to have to work within K-9 police procedures or worry about a task force. He was trained to deal with military combat situations and not stray dogs picking on cats. But as he let the thought sink in, he started to wonder what he would do with nothing to occupy his time. He wasn't really a 'go to the park and play fetch with an owner' type of dog. His skills were sharp and valuable, his attention span and need for relaxation were small.

"Okay," Steve agreed hesitantly. He did have one stipulation, though. "But I don't want random dogs thrown at me. I want to pick my team."

"Granted," the Governor gave him a brief flash of a smile. "Duke, tell him what he wants to know."

Duke gave a sigh, relenting. "Last I heard is the detective's tracking a lead on the windward side, somewhere out by Waimanalo Beach."

"That's a big area," Steve said. It had been a while since he had been out there, but he really didn't want to spend hours sweeping the beach and surrounding area looking for someone he didn't know.

"He got permission to track a couple of birds, two Mynahs I think," Duke replied with a shrug. "Somewhere around Waimanalo Beach Park on the outer edge of the trees by the shore."

Steve nodded. That was much better information. Narrowed it down a little bit. "Thanks, Duke. Governor."

"Keep me updated," she said.

"Steve, wait," Duke called at the already retreating form of the Navy dog. "What are you going to do?"

Steve paused for a moment. His ears flicked back and the fur on his neck stiffened. Dappled sunlight poking through the rain clouds mottled his slick gray and black hide, highlighting taut muscles and faded scars and dark tattoos on his shoulders. Dark blue eyes flashed as he glanced at the old dog and the golden retriever over his shoulder.

"I'm going to find my father's killer."

* * *

The hunter's green Toyota Tacoma pulled into a parking spot in the dirt under the shelter of the trees and the engine cut off. Here in the trees the rain wasn't falling as hard, though it had dropped into an alternating pattern of sunlight and downpour. Unfortunately, he had to endure a one minute downpour on the way out to Waimanalo.

He hopped onto the edge of the truck bed and dove off before the people realized they had a hitchhiker. It had been a while since he had pulled that move. Usually he had a ride to wherever he needed to go.

Steve grunted as he shook himself vigorously and crinkled his nose. Hopefully no one here was trained in enemy detection because they would be able to smell a wet dog coming from a mile away. At least the damp ground softened the sounds of his steps as he wove his way through the tree trunks towards where the shore met the forest.

"Great," Steve huffed as he scanned the sandy soil on the edge of the trees.

There were birds everywhere.

A few pigeons were huddled on some low branches further down to his right, feathers fluffed out and exchanging quiet coos. One glanced his direction before going back to its conversation with utter disinterest. They must see a lot of dogs out here along this strip of beach. A couple of seagulls meandered around flipping over pieces of trash in that general direction as well.

Two spindly legged birds trotted through the wet sand, dancing around the waves as they came in directly in front of him. In the misting rain they stopped to pick at a wad of seaweed. More seagulls bobbed up and down, up and down out on the choppy water. He couldn't even pick out if they were talking or what they were saying if they were.

To his left a flock of sparrows all stood on a fallen tree and chittered under their breaths. He tilted his head to the side, ears swiveling to catch snippets of their words. A couple of them stifled a laugh at something he didn't hear. His eyes narrowed. Sparrows were notorious for being up to date on the local gossip, especially where it concerned the goings on across the line.

He stealthily made his way towards the piece of timber. Honestly, a crow or two would've been better informants. Those types of birds always knew about something seedy going on because of their stature and reputation. Even massive Great Danes and aggressive Akitas were superstitious of the black birds. But he would have to make do as he knew there were no crows on the island. They existed everywhere else but here. As much as he hated to admit it, he would have to relearn some of the ropes as long as he was staying in Oahu. So sparrows it was.

But he halted as he heard a voice much more raucous than the sparrows speaking.

"And then the guy asked, 'What kind of idiot names a bird Clarence?' The parrot looked him square in the eye and said, 'The same idiot that named the Rottweiler Jesus,'" the loud voice finished.

All the sparrows busted up in laughter, high twitters that rose above the sound of the ocean washing ashore.

Steve lowered his head and slowed his pace so the tags on his collar didn't jingle as he edged around the upended roots of the tree to see what the sparrows were all looking and snickering at. A bigger blackish brown bird with a yellow stripe behind his eyes was laughing so hard that he could hardly stand.

This was definitely a Mynah.

"Hey, you. I want to talk," Steve barked.

Laughter turned into confused chirps and flutters from the sparrows. The Mynah drug a feather under his eye like he was wiping a tear away before looking up at the mixed breed dog staring him down. He folded his wings, still chuckling.

"Gotta go!" Without warning the bird was running the opposite direction, wings flapping like mad.

Steve growled and bounded after him. The Mynah was almost out of his reach when he jumped up and snapped his teeth on his tail feathers. There was a panicked squawk as he yanked the bird out of the air, tossing him to the ground and planting a paw on his chest.

"I said I wanted to talk. Now are you gonna talk willingly?" Steve snarled.

"Look, pal, I don't know what you've heard, but I don't know anything about anything," the Mynah spread out his wings in a surrendering gesture. "I'm just a bird out enjoying the weather."

"All you birds talk to each other. I want to know if you saw a dog get killed a month ago," Steve snapped.

The Mynah laughed. "A dog get killed? Pal, I have seen a Chihuahua get run down by a Hummer, a Pitbull shot in the head by a gangbanger, a Cocker Spaniel drown in a riptide, a tabby cat tossed out a third story window, a bag of kittens thrown off a bridge, a dove get her neck wrung by a kid, yadda, yadda, yadda all in the past month."

"He was a K-9 officer, and he was murdered," Steve leaned down closer to his beak.

"K-9?" the Mynah's face sobered. "Sounds like something that would be hard to miss. But I didn't see no mixed mutt whacked."

"I didn't say he was a mix," he pressed down harder on the bird's chest. Worried eyes stared up at him, widening at the slip. "Now talk. Or I'll start plucking flight feathers. We'll see how long a grounded Mynah can last."

"Oh, come off it, pal, you're bluffing. You're some kind of heat, working for K-9. You can't do that," the Mynah waved him off.

Steve grabbed a flight feather in his teeth and pulled it clean out, earning a terrible shriek. He spat it out and let it float down next to the bird's head. "Talk."

"No!"

Another feather gone.

"Talk!"

"I ain't got anything for you!"

He went to grab two or three feathers at once when a very brash voice interrupted him.

"Hey! Hey! What do you think you're doing?"

Steve twisted his head around to the tree line just over his shoulder. That voice sounded like it belonged to a Lab or a Springer. What he saw made him pause for a moment.

"Get your paws off my CI, you mutt!"

He flashed his teeth threateningly. His hackles rose and he seriously considered abandoning the bird to attack. Mutt. It was a general putdown to all dogs, but it still hurt. It had always been used as a slur towards him and to this day it still rubbed his fur the wrong way. Only by his training in restraining himself was he able to stay rigid in his place and not rip into the newcomer.

For the newcomer's part, he was definitely not a Lab or a Springer. Or a dog. He was a longhair blonde tabby cat and not even a very big one at that. The fur along the ridge of his spine was raised and his tail was fluffed, but he held Steve's eye with an unwavering fierceness.

"Your CI?" both Steve and the Mynah questioned.

"He was about to be my CI until you came in all snarling teeth and loud barking, Cujo," the cat raised his voice. "Now get out of here before I have to arrest you!"

"On whose authority?" Steve growled. "Yours?"

"Yes, mine. Detective Danny's authority that was given me by the state of Hawaii," the cat replied tersely.

"Lieutenant Commander Steve, MWD. He's officially my suspect now," Steve stated.

"On whose authority?" Danny stepped closer, still in a defensive posture but seemingly wholly unperturbed by facing down a much bigger adversary. "The Army's?"

"Navy. And no, on the Governor's authority," Steve took a step towards him. The feline stayed, not moving back but not striking. Cats always ran when he growled at them. Strange. "This is officially my case now."

Danny narrowed his eyes at him and caught sight of the tags on his collar. His jaw tightened upon realizing he wasn't being duped. "You have got to be kidding me. You're hijacking my case? Why would the Governor let you waltz in and take control of a case you know absolutely nothing about without letting anyone else know?"

"Because John of the K-9 Unit was my father," Steve said.

"Look, I'm sorry about your father, but this is my case," Danny insisted.

"Not anymore," Steve put his foot down on the ground firmly, his tone leaving no room for anymore persuading or arguing.

Danny lashed his tail and pinned his ears back. He looked as if he was going to retort but kept his mouth shut. His fur settled as he angled back to walk into the trees. Steve's dark eyes locked with the pale blue ones as the cat shot him a dirty look over his shoulder.

"Your suspect is getting away, you Neanderthal."

Steve whipped his head around just in time to see the Mynah get enough altitude to evade his jump at it again. With a frustrated huff he looked back towards the cat, stunned to find that he was already gone. He growled and kicked the sand with one paw. All the sparrows caught one glance of his aggravated face and took to the air.

"Damn it."

* * *

The rain was coming down harder now than it had been before. It was still a warm rain, which made Steve feel like he was taking a shower rather than darting across a street to the apartment complex on the other side in the middle of a storm. He smelled like a wet dog again and had a feeling he would for a while.

Silently he wove his way around one complex's corner and padded down the grassy alley between the two buildings. A cluster of boxes sat under a small overhang towards the back of the alley. The owner must've kept them there either to recycle or for people to use when they moved. Though not as bad as some places he had been, like the slums of Mumbai or Laos, it wasn't something he could imagine a detective for K-9 living in.

"Detective?" he called as he craned his head up to look up at the stacked boxes that were really more of a Jenga tower.

A large refrigerator box flap opened on the bottom level and a straight face glared up at him. The first question that flashed through Steve's mind was how was the cat not even wet? The question that exited his mouth, though, was the one that he had come here to ask.

"I heard there's another Mynah bird that you asked to question?" Steve asked as he pressed past the feline into the shelter of the box.

"No. Please. Come in," Danny grumbled, snagging the flap with his claws and pulling it shut. He turned and sat, staring down the dog investigating his home.

"You have a daughter?" Steve sat down as well and looked at him expectantly.

"Excellent detective work. What gave it away? The tiny bed next to the big bed or the pink toy mouse?" Danny questioned.

Steve glanced at the bigger collection of stuffing and a blanket next to a miniature version of itself and the little pink cat toy. "No, I can smell another cat. But that just confirms it. So, the other Mynah?"

"I hate to break it to you, but this is no longer my case," Danny gestured to him with a paw. "You pulled it out from under me. So now it's not my problem."

"Yeah, but you are the only one that actually knows what's going on with it," Steve said. He inhaled deeply and cocked his head to the side. "Who is the other Mynah?"

Danny flicked his tail, eyes narrowing in the dim light of the box. "Goes by the name of Compass. He's the cousin of the bird you tried to torture today."

"Compass?" Steve furrowed his brows.

"He gives directions to those that can make it worth his while," Danny explained. "Hence the nickname Compass. The working hypothesis is that when our guys got to the island they had to figure out where your father was first. If you can get Compass to flip maybe you can get their names or descriptions or something."

"Wait, what do you mean our guys arrived on the island?" Steve questioned. This was news to him. It was one thing for someone on the island to kill his father, but for someone off the island? It wasn't easy for animals to get to and from the island under the humans' radar.

"Didn't you talk to anyone about this case before you sunk your teeth into it?" Danny snapped. At the dog's shrug he rolled his eyes. "The ME determined that a bite mark on your father's leg matched the dentition of an Irish Setter. All registered Irish Setters have been vetted already. Our guy could be a stray, but there's a greater likelihood of him being a dog that hopped a ship here."

But Steve wasn't listening anymore. An Irish Setter that wasn't from the island? No, it couldn't be him. The last he had heard of him was back in Afghanistan. But it would be a hell of a coincidence if it wasn't. He had to find the other Mynah bird before it was too late.

"C'mon. We're going to go get Compass," Steve stood up and brushed past Danny, waiting at the flaps for him.

"_We_? There is no 'we'. Not my case, remember?" Danny stayed planted where he was. "We are not partners."

"The Governor gave me permission to use whatever resources are necessary. Between visits with your daughter all you have is this job, and that means you're committed. And I need that," Steve stated.

"So now you're forcing me to be your partner?" Danny perked a brow.

"We're going to get along great," Steve said simply, smiling and then bolting out into the still drizzling rain.

Danny sat there in his box, wondering exactly what he'd just been dragged into.

* * *

Steve edged around a fruit stand with Danny close behind him. The hitchhiking experience had been different than what Steve was used to. He had had no trouble finding a truck going the direction they needed to go and getting the two of them into its bed. It was the ride over that was different. Usually it was silent. Peaceful. Steve had never met a cat that could talk as much as Danny could. And he couldn't even recall what the majority of the conversation was about.

"What now, pooch? There's our bird," Danny's voice shook him from his thoughts.

Between two stalls around the corner a Mynah stood conversing with a couple of sparrows. He wasn't as loud as the one at the beach and held himself with more pride, dark feathers meticulously preened and shiny. As he turned a tattoo of a compass became visible on one of his legs.

"We should recon the area," Danny said and gestured to the surrounding stalls, trees, and buildings. "This guy isn't typically by himself."

"We'll just talk to him," Steve said. He took a step forward and stopped when the cat snagged his back leg with partially sheathed claws.

"Hey! What about backup, huh? We need eyes in the sky or something along those lines," Danny pointed upwards in a sweeping motion.

"You're my backup," Steve pulled away with one strong step and disappeared around the edge of the fruit stand.

"I'm the backup, he says," Danny grumbled, flexing his claws and then joining the dog on the other side of the stall. "You're a nutcase, you know that?"

Steve ignored him. He crept forward along the side of the stall, eyes locked onto the Mynah. His ears strained to hear what he was saying as Danny broke apart from him in the opposite direction to box the bird in. Muscles taut, fur raised, and nose twitching he took a single step towards his target.

"Yo! Cops!"

Compass jerked his head up from the sparrows at the shouted warning. Steve and Danny both looked up, searching the tops of the fruit stands and the surrounding buildings for the source of the cry. A shadow zipped overhead and was gone before they could see what it was.

Steve focused on the Mynah just as the bird caught sight of him. "Hey, freeze!"

The bird uttered a couple curses that were unrecognizable to him as he took off into the alley. It was at that moment that the early warning yeller materialized from thin air with a screech. Danny hissed hotly as a peregrine falcon dove at him.

He rolled with the hit, yowling as talons dug into his left front leg and shoulder. Continuing his roll he kicked the bird in the butt with his hind feet and stumbled up, catching Steve's concerned eye.

"Go! Go!"

Steve broke into a run after the hopping bird. He was running along the ground and jumping every couple steps, like a crop duster plane that couldn't quite get off the ground. One wing was stiff, as if it had been broken and healed wrong. That would explain why he hadn't taken to the sky yet. It was a lucky break for Steve, but damn that bird could run fast!

"Stop!" Steve barked at him.

Compass paused as they came up to a chain link fence separating the alleyway from the street over. With a satisfied smirk he jumped onto the wires and slipped through a diamond shaped hole. He strutted out to the curb and turned to tip a wing at the big dog following him.

Steve sized up the fence in a second before he sprung from the cement. His toes caught in the wires and he used his momentum before he lost it to run the rest of the way up, teetering at the top. Years of practice let him land with his weight spread out enough to not snap an ankle. He stopped at the mouth of the alley and stared the Mynah down.

"Don't come any closer, mutt," Compass said, glancing behind him at the decently busy street.

"You need to come with me. I've got some questions for you," Steve said with barely bit back anger at the slang again.

"I'll jump out into the street," he warned and hung one foot off the curb. "Then you'll never know what you need to know."

"Okay, okay," Steve held back a little. His neck fur laid flat and his ears went into a rest position in an attempt to look a little more relaxed. "You don't want to do that. Look, I'm staying right here."

* * *

**Thanks for reading guys!**


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